Outsourcing IT Trends 2016

The Cloud

Many business processes have already successfully migrated fully or partially to the cloud. It is expected that this trend will continue, and, as cloud security and reliability keep improving, we’ll even see more critical

processes moved to the cloud. Disaster Recovery in particular is seeing a lot of success in shifting several aspects to the cloud and away from older,

tape-based backups.

SecurityData security is a growing concern for all industries. Data loss can be extremely expensive and damaging for any business, with a single breach potentially costing over $35,000. Outsourcing companies will have to clearly demonstrate that they are able to keep their clients’ data safe in spite of frequent, sophisticated attempts at theft by malicious actors. Otherwise, more businesses may be swayed to keep or move projects in-house.

Specialized Expertise

While cost is, and likely always be, a major motivating factor for outsourcing, more businesses are finding that outsourcing is also a viable solution for filling gaps in knowledge and expertise. There are, for instance, very few programmers who are extensively familiar with languages like COBOL which are used in mainframe computing. Outsourcing is a way to gain access to programmers with this knowledge without having to hire additional, expensive full-time staff.

Offshored Projects and Departments Returning to the US

Offshoring has long appeared to be an attractive proposition due to low initial costs, many companies are reporting growing dissatisfaction with the results of their offshored projects and departments. Significant language and cultural barriers have created delays and miscommunications, resulting in lower quality work than expected. As such, many companies are likely to bring their work back to the US. To keep costs low, however, they will likely seek to outsource within the US.

Small Businesses Embrace ITO

As entrepreneurs look to grow their small businesses, they are

increasingly finding that there is a tremendous value in IT Outsourcing. In 2016 and beyond, entrepreneurs will outsource several IT processes, such as data backup or mainframe application hosting, to reduce cost and allow their companies to put

more time and resources into developing their core competencies.

Big Data Analysis

Companies are collecting more data than ever on their customers and their habits. Making use of this data, however, is a significant challenge for many. Look for IT

Outsourcing companies to provide data analysis solutions to help their clients make sense of everything that they’re collecting.

Internet of Things

As more and more devices and objects are becoming network-enabled each day, IT Outsourcing firms will need to be able to integrate such technology into their services. As

the Internet of Things grows, it is expected to become a multi-trillion dollar industry by the 2020s, and ITO companies will

need to be able deploy code and support for a wide variety of machine and devices.