Outsourcing is gradually becoming an integral part of global companies. These organizations are realizing that outsourcing holds immense value for their overall business prospects. While the trend of outsourcing picked up some years back, the real impetus has been received only lately. It has gone through its fair share of hiccups and impediments on the way; however, it seems that companies, economies, and governments have become willing to adopt it as a seamless part of business structures around the world.
Outsourcing in Information Technology has been more popular than some of the other sectors of the economy. One of the reasons for the same can be that there are clearly laid out procedures in the IT industry that can be augmented by the process of outsourcing.
We have documented some of the trends that we think might manifest in the domain of IT Outsourcing in the year 2014. These are based on our experience, knowledge, and profound research that our team conducts on a regular basis:
AUTOMATION: The first real trend that appears set to become the mainstay of IT Outsourcing in the year 2014 is automation. Experts believe that businesses of all kinds are geared to automate their processes further. Automation has transformed the way in which businesses are performed, but there is still room for improvement. If one looks at the long term horizon, there are beliefs that robot-like technologies might replace human efforts in organizations. There is some element of this in the physical aspect of work, but these technologies are soon expected to capture some of the intellectual space of a business’ routine work too. By 2014, though, this trend might just begin to manifest, and IT organizations are expected to be prepared for the wave. All companies are expected to ideate of ways in which they could reduce the time it takes to perform certain activities.
HYBRID OUTSOURCING: The mixed environment can emerge in the year 2014. This will beckon a combination of outsourcing and insourcing. Hence, companies will invest a lot more in the Global services model.
FLEXIBLE PRICING MODEL: It is great to have a price chart for various services that you provide. However, 2014 shall expect you to customize your services, and also the pricing. Organizations are becoming selective and picky. Therefore, it is imperative to append more flexibility to your work structure. You need to understand what your clients are looking for, and on the basis of that develop a pricing model that precisely suits the needs.
CLOUD BASED INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: Cloud based technology has been a success. Companies have adopted it, and a lot of the development related work has been outsourced to companies. However, the complete horizon of the service hasn’t been explored yet. There are chances that more will be done with the technology in the coming times. Issues related to security, back-up, consistency, and reliability will have to be discussed and tackled with the passage of time.
BRIMMING COMPETITION: There were limited companies, from few countries, that were majorly known for outsourcing. With time, though, the dynamics have changed, and more companies have entered the marketplace. This has meant that the competition has brimmed, and companies no longer enjoy the kind of monopoly that they were used to. They would have to, therefore, aspire to create value for their customers to differentiate themselves from the rest.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP STRATEGIES: In additional to adding value, companies would have to also develop customer relationship strategies. Outsourcing hasn’t really been about account management, especially when you compare it with some of the other industries. The time is ripe now to change that perspective and add another layer of customer relationship to the work structure.
If you have any other ideas of changes that the IT Outsourcing industry might witness in the year 2014, you can write a comment below, and share it with the world.