IT Outsourcing: What are Risks, Advantage and Challenges Involved
Most of the businesses today are availing outsourcing to survive in economical conditions worsening today. There are many companies present in the developing countries providing outsourcing to various businesses in developed countries. The services provided by such companies are of high quality and are available at competitively low prices. These services include a huge list of operations broadly classified into front office and back office services including data entry, management of documents, call centers, SEO, Social Meidia and many other marketing services. However, there are both risks and benefits along with some challenges related to this process.
Benefits of Outsourcing IT
There are various advantages of hiring an outsourcing company to have a cutting edge over competitors for a business. The various benefits of a business process outsourcing are as given below.
- There is no need for the setup of a business location to carry on various backend or front-end operations. This helps businesses save investment on the infrastructure costs, which they can invest in advancing their business.
- The burden of various tasks is reduced, which allows businesses to target various core functionalities and train their employees for enhancing their productivity.
- The whole process is carried over the internet, thus a paperless functioning allows companies to save space and resources, otherwise required to be invested in managing various documents.
- There is a cutthroat competition among various BPO companies, so they provide innovative solutions to businesses for their clients. Thus, businesses benefit from the improvements in services to customers.
- Due to increased competition among various companies to provide better services, a competition among the cost of service is also established. Thus, businesses get opportunity of hiring low priced services for higher outputs.
The Risks of Outsourcing IT
Having a look at above mentioned benefits, it seems that outsourcing services are very beneficial to businesses, but there are certain risks involved in hiring such services. These risks are mentioned below.
- The main risk involved in the process of outsourcing is related to the security of a business. Since, a business has to provide the outsourcing company with access to important information about the business, so any misuse can lead to a loss to the business.
- With access to valuable information, various businesses face risks of confidential reports, codes or other documents of a popular product, which can harm the business.
- If there is any kind of issue faced by the outsourcing company, it directly affects the operations of a business, leading to poor services and other consequences.
Challenge of Outsourcing
In the period of the rise of the business of outsourcing companies, there are various challenges involved too, which are mentioned below.
- Due to high pressure of work and relatively low amount of salaries to the employees and leisure opportunities for career growth, the consequent reduction of employees is the main challenge. Hiring new candidates and training them costs a lot to the outsourcing company.
- The development of outsourcing companies in developing countries has helped them raise their economic level. Due to this factor, various developed countries have started opposing the processes of outsourcing businesses, affecting the BPO and SEO sector at a large scale.