“Outsourcing IT can help us to do things smarter which helps save money and improve staff morale”, CEO UK Charity

Return on investment is important for every industry. For the third sector, however, it feels particularly crucial to be able to see, clearly and precisely, where the money is going and how it will make things better.

Reinvestment must demonstrably and, ideally instantly, benefit the charity, its stakeholders and the people it was founded to help. This blog revisits a previous post about the benefits of outsourcing. This is something that we are really hammering home because outsourcing works.

Choose the right provider and it will be the smartest decision you have ever made. There aren’t that many things we will shout from the rooftops, but this is one of them.

The idea of outsourcing might feel scary at first. The reality is, however, that you will be handing your IT over to skilled specialists with the latest market-leading technology, instead of taking the risk of making your own investment and then having the overhead if operating it.

Outsourcing will invariably improve your operations, increase your functionality, improve your security, make sure you meet compliance, remove any hassle and cost you less in the long run.

Our last blog covered associated costs, why it’s great to have a virtual skilled team, time benefits and the latest technology.. Here are some more reasons specifically relevant to 2018.

“Professionally managed IT improves work flow between teams and volunteers.”, CEO UK Charity  

It’s hassle-free 

The great thing about outsourcing is that you only need to know your challenges and budget. You don’t need to know which products and solutions will solve them, how much they cost, how they are maintained or managed. You also don’t need to know about updates or licenses or how to recruit and retain the best IT talent. With outsourcing, you typically pay a monthly fee and you have a team of experts working around the clock to make sure your IT is working perfectly, 100% of the time. Your IT is taken off your hands. 

It supports innovation 

Even charities with great internal IT staff, won’t have specialists in every area. Specialists are hard to find, recruit and retain but they are there in abundance in good MSPs. Allow your core team to concentrate on their usual functions and outsource any new ideas and programmes which you don’t have the time, budget or specialist skillset to research and develop yourself.  

GDPR Hits Home in 2018 

Meeting compliance can be a stress particularly manually on disparate legacy systems. Outsourcing and having the right tech in place to negate the sort of human error which means a breach in compliance and save you time, money and stress as well as protecting your reputation. 

 

 “Professionally managed IT improves work flow between teams and volunteers.”, CEO UK Charity   

There is no avoiding Generation Z 

To engage with the new generation: as volunteers, employees and donors you will need a digital strategy. Gen Z expect engaging social media, super quick and easy ways to donate and collaborative and flexible work environments. If you want to attract them, you need the technology in place and the digital skills to make that possible. To do this internally will, for many charities, involve a huge cultural change and a wealth of training and development.  

There is no end in sight for security requirements 

Threat levels are increasing and not reducing. Sadly, there is no one, single plug and play product that will protect you, your clients or your data. To protect yourself you need the right mix of products, solutions and capabilities which you get with outsourcing: 

• A team of specialists 
• The latest technology and updates 
• Up to the minute security intelligence 
• Ethical hackers checking for vulnerabilities 

This would be extremely costly to replicate from scratch internally. 

Further Information

• More about IT Security & Compliance
• More about IT and the Third Sector
• Information on outsourcing your IT
• More about Blue Saffron
• Contact us