Companies across industries and sectors have a common issue: growth. Expansion is the result of increased demand for products and services and a company’s capacity to expand effectively and without disrupting or negatively affecting product and service quality. By now, almost any firm will have firsthand knowledge and experience with how critical digital assets and infrastructure are for operations, customer interactions, and sales.

The digital infrastructure supports more than simply websites and internal communication systems; for many businesses, particularly internet-based, digital assets are crucial to virtually all company processes. The capacity to earn money is frequently enabled solely through digital means, whilst growth might be nearly completely based on extending markets and client bases online.

Aside from the overall relevance of digital assets and how they are utilized in business, companies must also swiftly mend and modify their digital products and systems to meet evolving customer needs and expectations.

The problem is both simple and complex:

How can a firm rapidly grow an IT project or its digital assets to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions and dynamics?

How can organizations grow up or down without spending a lot of time and money on hiring and training in-house IT teams? Outsourcing is the most effective solution that even major firms with massive in-house development teams find and use.

IT Outsourcing 101

We should define outsourcing before we consider how a firm may utilize IT outsourcing to grow its operations efficiently. Outsourcing software development or IT services entails hiring another company specializing in IT and development to complete a software development or IT project. For small to medium-sized businesses and start-ups with limited resources, the ability to hire, train, and permanently employ in-house software teams is frequently far superior to hiring, training, and permanently employing an external IT company that specializes in delivering software solutions.

Furthermore, because of the nature of the internet and the sophisticated technologies available for remote working arrangements, businesses may hire IT outsourcing companies from all over the world. This is one of the primary benefits of outsourcing IT: it frees businesses from the constraints of obtaining IT assistance and knowledge from local tech experts or businesses.

This enables access to IT specialists in countries with lower labor costs, whose business specialty is offering software solutions to a wide range of sectors in the most time-efficient manner. And it’s not only small businesses that have realized the value of this sort of arrangement: even major tech giants like Apple, Google, and Facebook frequently hire outside IT firms to build software for them, some of which have been utilized in some of their most successful products.

So, now that we’ve discussed why outsourcing is such an appealing choice for a wide spectrum of organizations looking to expand or improve their software and digital assets, let’s look at how a company may successfully use outsourcing to scale.

Flexibility is the key to scaling.

When it initially started wreaking havoc early last year, the Covid-19 problem lays out the challenge of expanding digitally for many organizations worldwide. Businesses that had previously relied on local, physical sales and services had to hurry to undergo a digital transition to have a chance of survival in the face of lockdowns.

Businesses that were able to adapt to the challenge and quickly implement the types of digital assets required to continue business operations in the new conditions – new local delivery options, upgraded websites, logistical communication systems, and so on – business may have even improved after the crisis began.

Of course, Covid-19 isn’t the only reason for businesses to adopt or enhance their digital capabilities — it’s just one of the most dramatic and current. In reality, especially in “normal” times, businesses are continuously confronted with a diverse set of difficulties and opportunities that need the expansion – or contraction – of their software development activities. This is when an IT outsourcing business may come in handy. They enable businesses to adapt rapidly to changing market dynamics and conditions without going through the time-consuming and costly processes of in-house software development.

An organization can, for example, hire an outside IT firm to help with the following scaling processes:

1. Respond

Outsourcing development work to a skilled external IT company enables businesses to adapt to changing conditions as quickly and efficiently as feasible. Be accessible to a pre-existing team of development experts that know how to collaborate, understand the needs of various sectors and businesses, and have combined expertise in several different coding languages and techniques may be a big benefit.

With access to such an external team, a firm may focus on knowing its markets and consumers, envisioning how it wants to reach and serve those markets, and acting decisively on that information without retaining in-house staff. They may just press the “Go” button to begin their software project or update without having to gather the necessary human and technical resources.

2. Ramp Up

Consider a manufacturing company that has discovered that a significant part of its internet business originates from a foreign nation. The owners of the company may rationally conclude that if they were able to create a website in that country’s language, with products specifically tailored to that country’s prevailing market conditions and the demand they have seen in their sales, they might be able to significantly increase their portion of that country’s market for their products.

However, attempting to develop that new, country-specific website in-house may be outside the scope of the company’s capabilities. The solution is to hire an outside IT developer to perform it for them.

3. Ramp Down

This issue is frequently ignored in business strategy, but our experience teaches us that it is critical to examine. One of the primary advantages of outsourcing software development is that it allows businesses to avoid spending huge sums of money on keeping software teams that are unnecessary. Most businesses do not require permanent in-house software teams. They aim to create software solutions that function, that can be maintained with minimum effort, and that can be upgraded or expanded when it makes financial sense. Outsourcing software development helps businesses be as flexible as possible with their software solutions, developing when necessary, fine-tuning, and then terminating a project when it is ready, without incurring additional legacy expenses.

A competent and experienced IT service provider will be able to give its clients defined project schedules and the necessary degree of after-project maintenance and testing that is scaled and responsive to the project at hand.

Professional IT outsourcing firms will also strive to complete tasks as quickly as feasible to satisfy their clients. Professional IT providers realize that digital assets must be maintained and expanded regularly. They understand that efficiency and adaptability are KSPs they should embrace and seek if they want to keep their clients coming back to them.

Of course, as with any sector, there are several participants in the IT outsourcing field, and businesses must conduct due diligence on any company with whom they intend to do business. An IT outsourcing business should be open and honest regarding workflow, deadlines, project constraints, and data security — the list is lengthy and beyond the scope of this article (though we will go over them in greater detail in a future piece).

However, once you’ve decided to outsource to a reputable supplier, the rewards may be significant – and scalable!