Until recently, the concept of organizational flexibility was one of the hottest topics in the world of organizational management. But it's time to delete it from your vocabulary, because the events of recent years - whether it be the crisis in the Euro zone, the emergence of the sharing economy, Brexit or the US elections - have made the word passé. So what’s the buzzword of today? Well, resilience is the new flexibility. This term means the company's ability to anticipate, prepare, and react and adapt to sudden disruptions. In other words - it is the skill of rolling with the punches, of rapid reorganization and continuation. The origin of such blows in today's business environment can be very different, not just from politics or the economy, but also from technology. Currently, every industry is probably anxiously looking for its own Uber, which will come out of nowhere to destroy the market. So how do you ensure the resilience to roll with such punches?
Competence on demand
No matter what the industry, your company is - or will be - forced to cross over to the digital side. All branches of the economy are digitizing at a dizzying pace, because so far it is the best way to prepare for the unpredictable. Data analysis, Big Data, machine learning, it all means the tools that can predict threats before it is too late to react to them. Do not delude yourself that you are not involved. Technology is a powerful weapon - the biggest threat, however, is in the hands of the competition. Not every company is prepared for the digital arms race. This is not always deliberate and effective. It requires having the right people, creating a team, and developing the right business model.
The process of building an effective team is long and complicated. It is worth taking a moment to answer the following questions:
- is IT my core business?
- Do I have sufficient knowledge of how the team should help in the development of my business, and how it should function?
- Do I have the opportunity to find suitable specialists on the labor market for the right price?
- Can I afford to wait until my team is complete, established and has the requisite project qualifications?
If the answer to any of these questions is no, you should probably think about IT outsourcing, which can be vividly illustrated as a service to share competences on demand.
Competence as a Service
Outsourcing IT services allows a company to acquire knowledge, experience and skills without having to incur the costs associated with recruiting employees, building a team and training them, and can be done exactly at the point at which it becomes necessary. This means that the organization does not have to invest valuable resources and time in activities that are not the primary goal of its activities, and can therefore focus its efforts on what it knows and specializes in. The IT outsourcing service provider acts as a technological security agency that responds quickly to customer needs. The on-demand services model ensures that, in the case of necessary changes to the structure of the company, changing priorities or backing out of certain projects, this process can be carried out quickly, efficiently and painlessly.
Outsourcing of IT services means:
- just-in-time competencies – exactly when they are needed rather than as and when an organization manages to create a team with the proper qualifications; the team does not become a financial burden in the intervals between projects or when the project ends.
- scalability - meaning the ability to adjust the number of specialists and their work to the needs of the company;
- diversification – depends on the possibilities of one internal team or specific people, the possibility of acquiring competencies from different sources, suppliers, even different regions and countries, which reduces the exposure of the firm to political and economic risk;
Team leasing, Talent Leasing and Managed services - find what suits you best
IT outsourcing service providers offer different models which the client is able to adapt according to specific needs:
Talent Leasing – If your company lacks specific expertise, you can take the opportunity to hire a specialist who can help you implement a project or solve specific problems. This method can also be used to complement your existing team e.g. in case of a sudden vacancy or difficulties in recruiting specialists. Using this model, you can benefit from the expertise of specialists such as programmers, consultants, business analysts, and testers, as well as Technical Team Leaders and Project Managers.
Team Leasing – in this model you hire an entire team, consisting of specialists who will be indispensable to your project. The service provider helps you to specify a list of competencies that will be required, based on which technologies must be applied, what form of team management will be used, and to what extent the software will be tested. Such a team can be managed directly by the customer or by Project Managers or Project Owners, who are also outsourced specialists.
Managed Services – is a comprehensive service of business application management in the IT environment, from the implementation of applications, their development and maintenance, to technological support. In practice, this means that all processes related to IT infrastructure and the use of business applications are supported by the service provider. This service thus relies on outsourcing all business operations to a company which specializes in such projects. Without a doubt, such a model requires an appropriate level of confidence in business relationships between cooperating organizations; however it brings great advantages, particularly relieving the burden on companies in terms of particularly technologically complicated areas of the company’s operations.
Author: JCommerce
Article from NearshoreIT - Blog