A good partner can make a big difference in the performance of your INTERNAL teams. Finance partners with accounting firms, legal with outside council, and sales will partner with various marketing firms. These relationships are based on mutual professional respect and often become an extension of your internal teams.
A solid partner for internal technology teams is critical today.
Technology available to business is constantly changing. This is different than other functions your business performs. Imaging if accounting methods completely changed every 10 years? It would be difficult to keep up with all those changes AND perform the day-to-day functions. The role of internal IT is to perform functions that add value to the business and enhance its competitive advantage. Everything else technology related should be outsourced to a partner.
Keeping servers, networks, and applications running is critical to business operations, but it provides no competitive advantage. In fact, you may be at a disadvantage and increase your overall risk profile if you perform these functions in-house. Your internal IT teams need to focus on the projects and services that are unique to how you run your business. Healthcare often requires people that can quickly develop reporting or work with physicians to develop new workflows. Spending time on “routine” IT needs takes away from the time they need to move the business forward.
A good IT partner will also elevate the performance of your current IT team. Collaboration with folks outside your business but in the same functional area should always lead to improved ideas and conversation. The open exchange of best practices and ideas your partner sees across its much larger base of operations is always going to have a positive influence on your productivity.
Choosing a partner is a key event in the evolution of your business operations for any area, but especially for technology. Even if you consider your internal technology team to be great, why not make it EVEN BETTER by allowing them to focus more on moving your business forward?