Expert insights on offshore IT outsourcing

This article is a submission by Linkage IT Private Limited. Linkage IT Private Limited specializes in IT staff augmentation, digital marketing, and Salesforce consulting, offering tailored solutions with a 95% trial success rate to help businesses achieve sustainable success through innovative and reliable technology.

Do you know you can save a lot of money and effort by using offshore outsourcing for your IT jobs? 

Studies show that 57% of global IT businesses made offshore outsourcing a part of their business strategy saving millions and getting successful in their fields. IT companies prefer to outsource processes to overcome issues like scalability, long-term commitments, increased expenses, and skilled manpower shortage. 

Get a detailed insight into offshore IT outsourcing before you consider using it to enhance your organization’s productivity and growth.

What is outsourcing?

When businesses choose an external body to execute any particular job or maybe the entire project, it is called outsourcing.

Outsourcing is not limited to any particular industry; it has become an industry itself. The main purpose of outsourcing is to reduce expenses but it is way more beneficial than just cost savings. 

What is offshore IT outsourcing?

Outsourcing agencies offer several kinds of outsourcing services, such as offshore outsourcing, onshore outsourcing, nearshore outsourcing, and project-based outsourcing. The global market of IT outsourcing is growing rapidly and according to Statista, it is going to touch $397.6 billion by 2025. 

Offshore outsourcing has gained huge popularity in the IT industry. In this kind of outsourcing, businesses hire outsourcing companies from a distant country or a different continent where manpower is efficient and cheaper. 

5 Benefits of offshore IT outsourcing

Offshore outsourcing is popular because its benefits score more than its limitations. Offshore outsourcing is surely a cost-saving solution but there are a lot more to list. 

1. Cost savings

Hiring efficient manpower is not cheap. It is a long-term commitment that also involves infrastructure costs like electricity, machinery, real estate, etc.

On the other hand, offshore IT outsourcing of tasks will save you a lot of money as you don’t need to spend on infrastructure, have no long-term commitments, and manpower costs are also cheap.

2. Focus on core business

When you outsource certain IT work or projects, you can concentrate on your business strategy and core business factors.

Whether you own an IT or any other business, outsourcing IT-related work can save you productive time and manpower. You can use this time to grow your core business.

3. Scaling up efficiency

IT businesses often experience work volume fluctuations. Hiring excess employees when required and putting them on benches for long will increase your expenditure but not productivity.

Offshore outsourcing could be your savior plan as you can hire them at any point in time to manage the high volume of work without spending training time. Similarly, you may discontinue the service contract when you hit the lows. 

4. Access to skilled manpower

Many countries face a shortage of skilled and experienced IT professionals. Through offshore IT outsourcing, you will have access to skilled professionals at a cheaper price.

Offshore outsourcing also allows you to get services from different technological experts under one contract. You do not need to hire several specialists to avail of specialized services. 

5. Benefits of latest technologies

The IT industry is upgrading itself every day. It is almost impractical to upgrade the hardware and software or change gadgets frequently as it involves a lot of expenses.

Instead, hiring an offshore outsourcing agency that is equipped with the latest technologies is a wise decision. They upgrade and keep their technological part up-to-date.

Have you ever thought about how offshore outsourcing could help to grow your business at a rapid speed? Let us find out how it helps major global players to grow their businesses.

Real-life examples of offshore IT outsourcing

The benefits of offshore outsourcing are used by small startups and big giants like Google and Alibaba as well. 

Today we know WhatsApp as the most popular messaging app in the world but once it was just a startup with small employee strength. The founders understood the potential of expansion but hiring talents could be a huge load for them.

Subsequently, they decided to outsource and concentrate on expanding. The result of their wise decision is in front of you.

You will be surprised to know that IT giants like Google use offshore outsourcing. Despite having a massive manpower, Google could not manage its workload and outsource its AdWords project to get the service of global talents.

For Google, getting access to skilled manpower to execute the job perfectly was a hard decision. But they took the help of offshore IT outsourcing which made it a huge success.

5 Challenges involved in offshore IT outsourcing

Besides several benefits, a few challenges are also involved in offshore outsourcing. However, you can avoid such circumstances if you choose your offshore outsourcing partner wisely.

Here are some of the common challenges and the ways to avoid them:

1. Communication challenges

In the case of offshore IT outsourcing, businesses generally hire agencies from other countries. Sometimes they face issues with languages as they might not speak any common language.

Thankfully, most of these countries speak English and it can be used as a communication language.

2. Lack of control

Offshore outsourcing of any task means you can not check or control it anytime you want. You have to wait for the update meetings with the agency to get a clear picture of the progress of the project.

However, you can avoid this kind of incident by stating your expectations clearly while making the contract cover aspects like how frequently you want the reports or what kind of control you need over the project. 

3. Security risk to intellectual property

We know data and intellectual properties are the most precious these days for any business. When you outsource your IT-related job or any IT project, you should be concerned about the security of your intellectual properties.

There is always a chance to compromise the data security. Make sure you choose an agency that has a strong data security policy and equipment.

4. Time zone difference

Hiring an offshore IT outsourcing agency from a different continent may cause a time zone difference issue. You and the agency both may struggle to take time to communicate.

However, professional agencies set their limitations clearly and it is advisable that you also state your expectations at the beginning. This will help you avoid any conflict in the future.

5. Too much dependency

Outsourcing also means your dependency on a third-party agency and this is an unavoidable fact. However, you can outsource part of the project and not the entire project or add a layer of quality checks to reduce dependency on outsourcing agencies.

It is advisable to demand regular updates and progress reports at frequent intervals.

Take the step toward offshore IT outsourcing

Outsourcing is a wise business strategy that will save you time, money, and manpower and help you increase productivity. Offshore outsourcing made it possible for businesses to hire people globally at a lower cost and at the same time opened the door of immense opportunity for skilled professionals.

So what are you waiting for? Grab the chance to save money and improve efficiency by availing benefits of offshore IT outsourcing. Whether you have a startup or a huge business, you can use this opportunity to save costs and get high-quality service.