If you are going to outsource your IT function, then sooner is better than later. I say this because at least where some IT functions are concerned, that is the shape of the future. Notice that I said some, and not all. The trick is, how do you tell the difference?
What To Export, What To Keep
Some decisions are easy. Storage is cheap, and generally speaking, not differentiated from one company to the next. Doesn't really matter what kinds of files you're storing, they're all stored in essentially the same way, so really, it comes down to two questions: How much space do you need, and how accessible do you want it to be?
There's nothing embedded in the answer of either of those questions that outright requires the storage to be in your facility physically, or even to be managed by someone from your company. In fact, there are at least a few different reasons why this might be the superior approach, not the least of which is the change on the digital wind. Cloud computing fosters easier collaborations, world wide, seamlessly.
Certain basic data processing can likewise be outsourced, and there's no real reason to delay, especially given that wearables are on the horizon. Wearables are generally too small to do all their own processing, so you'll need to have some Cloud-based processing power available to take advantage of that, and since everyone will have a wearable of one kind or another, you're definitely going to want to take advantage of that, which means that you'll need at least some cloud based processing capability yourself.
So those two bits are easy, and the sooner you get started, the better. The other reason “sooner” is better is because if you're a relatively young company, then you haven't had the time to develop lots of “legacy systems” which require highly specialized knowledge to keep running. Since you don't have anything like that, there's less of a learning curve for the people you will be outsourcing to. The longer you wait, the longer the learning curve becomes.
Then of course, there will be a few things that you won't want to outsource. Support for proprietary software should probably stay in-house. Any mission critical processes that are vital to your ongoing ability to turn a profit are also good candidates to stay in the family. Basically, anything not “off the shelf.” Outsourcing firms handle “off the shelf” pretty well. They may not be nearly as good when it comes to mastering complex, custom built systems or applications. There are of course some great companies out there which specialize in just this kind of stuation, and they are well worth seeking out and treasuring.
At the end of the day then, the answer to the “when” part of the equation winds up being “as soon as humanly possible.” it's the “what” part of the equation, as in, “What specific functions can you afford to outsource?”' that will prove somewhat more challenging to answer. The future is here, and the future is highly decentralized. That's' going to mean, by definition, relying at least somewhat on outsourced IT services. Best start making plans in that direction now.
