Insourced vs Outsourced IT

If you’ve already established that one IT guy might not be enough to meet the needs of your senior living facility, the next move would be to determine whether you should insource or outsource your IT functions. While most organizations agree on the significance of new technologies not all of them are sure whether it’s better to develop organizations in-house or to outsource them to experts in the field.

Insourcing

Insourcing is typically the solution when a company has complex needs that require specialized support. Insourcing requires a significant financial investment. In addition to incurring the cost of a full-time IT staff, all IT products must be purchased and owned by the company.

In some cases, these costs are justified. Businesses that are highly specialized or operating in a niche market, businesses that operate under strict confidentiality and don’t want proprietary information accessible, as well as businesses who have developed their own IT programs and processes. In this case, they are the experts on their own products so it makes sense to keep IT in-house.

Outsourcing

According to a Deloitte study, 74% of companies outsource IT services to better serve their businesses. There’s a good reason so many businesses choose to outsource—it allows the organization to focus on the primary function and mission of its business.

There are many advantages to outsourcing IT for your business including:

• Access to a Team of IT Experts- When developing an in-house IT team, you’re limited by your payroll. You can only afford to hire so many IT folks and you definitely wouldn’t be able to hire experts for every system you employ. By outsourcing, you gain access to a curated team of people who are highly trained and specialize in just what you need help with.

• Lower Costs- For the amount of experience and skill you get by outsourcing, you would have to pay a fortune to employ the same quality and quantity of IT support in-house.

• Increased Availability- in contrast to an in-house IT team who probably only work 9-5, with many outsourced IT solutions, including Integrated Health Systems, IT support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. When you’re running a senior living facility where your team is working around the clock, you need an IT support team that will do the same.

• Competitive Edge- outsourcing allows smaller companies to provide services that would otherwise be out of their budget which makes them more competitive in their respective market.