The number of UK SMEs turning to exporting has increased, according to new research. Image courtesy of: jscreationzs/freedigitalphotos.net
SMEs can save money by outsourcing their IT support needs, according to technology commentator Phil Wainwright.
Wainwright, who is vice-chairman of
Eurocloud, said that using in-house staff to maintain servers and other IT services is an expense that could be better spent on system improvements.
He said that outsourcing to specialist firms, and then using in-house staff to increase the efficiency of other systems, is likely to provide a better return.
“You can employ their skills better by working with the online applications and getting the most out of them, rather than just having them keeping servers running.”
He also outlined the benefits of cloud computing, stating that the platform offers much broader functionality that just a hosted management system.
“It's not just managed hosting, you're getting a complete application that is a complete service in the cloud,” he said. “It's not like taking software and just running it on a server that someone else manages for you, it's actually getting the whole application delivered and running."
A new report by advisory agency
TPI found that spend on IT outsourcing in the EMEA region was higher in the first nine months of 2011 than in the whole of 2010, suggesting that firms are starting to see the financial and productivity benefits of outsourcing.
However, outsourcing varied by sector, with a sharp fall in the number of financial services institutions outsourcing functions. In the time since the first three quarters of 2011, financial services institutions have invested less than 48 percent of the amount they invested in the same period in 2010.