Why Outsource Application and Database Management

John Hughes is Manager Partner for ManageForce Corporation.

Outsourcing is by no means a new idea, but outsourced database and application management have become more prominent in almost every type of industry. For the most part, that has to do with how today’s technology has broadened the possibilities and capabilities of remote management, making it much more flexible.

Executives still debate whether there are any tangible benefits to having a remote team handle certain responsibilities or tasks for a business. But the reality is that if you find the right people and identify the right areas to outsource, hiring a remote team will positively impact your bottom line. Outsourcing managed services can help reduce costs, tap into top quality talent, provide efficiency and flexibility, and most importantly, lets you and your team focus on what really matters in your business—the core tasks that drive meaningful growth.

1. Letting internal teams focus on core projects. The key to getting the most out of outsourced remote management is through finding the best balance of services across support areas, whether the need is for remote application management, database administration, or specialized functional support. Having a dedicated and reliable team will allow you to free internal resources to focus on more important projects.

Every business task is divided into two categories, “chore” tasks or “core” tasks. “Chore” tasks encompass all the responsibilities that keep the business running, like managing infrastructure and maintaining optimal performance of databases. Though performing these tasks will ensure that you can stay open for business, they don’t distinguish your operations from the competition.

“Core” tasks are the responsibilities fundamental to business growth. They are the types of activities unique to your company that form part of the strategic plan to create a competitive advantage. As such, you would ideally keep these “core” areas internal, and as the main focus of your IT department.

So, if you can free your team from the “chore” support tasks by finding experts to manage those tasks, you will be able to dedicate more time and resources to “core” business projects.

2. Saving money by doing less and getting better results. Cost savings is usually the most tangible benefits of offloading “chore” tasks to focus on “core” tasks. When you find the right outsourced team for remote database and application management, you typically will get more out of limited resources like on-demand access to senior-level experts, as you no longer have to spend the time or capital to find and hire that expert. That is also true of niche talent needed for a temporary service or task. Without the support of outsourced managed service providers, you would need to hire a consultant or add an employee in order to obtain this niche talent. But by right-sourcing in partnership with a managed service provider, you have access to the right person for the job whenever the need comes up.

Another way remote management helps cut costs is by providing game-changing technologies that would otherwise be an expensive capital expenditure to acquire. By tapping into remote managed services, your business can seamlessly tap into cloud database migration and support, virtualization of database environments, database server consolidation—just to name a few of the many other new features and tech that will become available over time.

3. Tapping into the best quality talent. When right-sourcing to a qualified database and application managed services provider, another big advantage is that you gain access to a full team of industry experts in every aspect of IT. Especially for an IT team that is smaller and/or more limited in their resources (monitoring/management tools, consulting budgets, etc.), if your business takes care of “chore” tasks internally, it’s often too big of a burden,thereby limiting your ability to grow your team’s expertise. But if you outsource these tasks to a qualified managed service provider, you can either free your team to focus on more strategic activities and/or leverage the outsourced remote management team’s expertise and specialized knowledge to find solutions and improvements to your unique needs.

4. Around-the-clock flexibility results in more efficiency. A business needs to be prepared to encounter problems and inconveniences at all times. When it comes to technology, any setback can result in catastrophic consequences for the business. You need to be up and running to make money; nobody likes expensive downtime.

With remote management, you can provide IT support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year--no sick days, no vacations, no interruption. It doesn’t matter what time zone you are in; you can rest assured that an entire team dedicated to solving your problems will be available around-the-clock.

By taking the time to identify “chore” tasks that cost time and money but don’t add growth to the business, an executive can make a huge positive impact on the bottom line. Not only will the business likely cut costs, but it will also have access to a large pool of industry experts, the most advanced technology, as well as around-the-clock service. The potential benefits are too great to at not least consider outsourced database management and remote application management, if you are able to find the right team to collaborate with; as it frees up your team to focus on strategic business planning and execution.

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