IT Outsourcing: Security in Development & Operation

As an IT outsourcing partner, soxes reliably and efficiently takes care of the operation and maintenance of software solutions and IT-heavy business areas. Before your company can start looking for suitable IT outsourcing providers, it is helpful to know exactly about IT outsourcing. In this article, you will learn what IT outsourcing exactly means, what types of work you can outsource and what types of IT outsourcing there are.

Outsourcing of IT services describes the transfer or outsourcing of IT functions or IT services that were previously provided in-house to an external IT service provider such as soxes. The cooperation between the company and the service provider is regulated in a so-called service level agreement.

The services to be provided by your IT outsourcing provider within the scope of IT outsourcing are defined together with you in a service level agreement (SLA). You can find out more about service level agreements on the IT outsourcing provider page.

1. There are three service levels in IT outsourcing: infrastructure outsourcing (e.g. server services), application outsourcing (e.g. software development) and business process outsourcing (e.g. online marketing services).
2. Geographic distance: here, a distinction is made between onshore or nearshore outsourcing. “Onshore” refers to the outsourcing of services to a company in the same economic area. “Onshore” refers to the outsourcing of projects to service providers abroad.
3. The division of labor: here, a distinction is made between partial outsourcing and full outsourcing. In the case of partial outsourcing, only part of the responsibility lies with an external partner.

• • Software development and maintenance: This type of outsourcing includes the design, development and maintenance of software applications for companies.
  • Operation and support of existing IT infrastructure: This type of outsourcing includes the operation and maintenance of servers, networks and storage systems, for example.
  • Cloud services: This type of outsourcing includes hosting applications and data on cloud-based platforms such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.
  • IT Security & Cybersecurity: This type of outsourcing includes ensuring network security and incident handling. With the goal of protecting a company’s information and systems from cyber threats.
  • Quality Assurance & Testing: This type of outsourcing involves testing software applications and systems to ensure that they meet the company’s requirements and are free from bugs.
  • Data management: this type of outsourcing involves storing, analyzing and interpreting data to help businesses make better decisions.

  So, IT outsourcing projects can be quite diverse in nature. From conception to implementation and subsequent maintenance of systems, soxes can responsibly manage all phases in the operation and transformation of your software and infrastructure.

As mentioned above, “onshoring” or “nearshoring” means that IT services are outsourced to a provider located in the same country or region as the company.

This is often done to get the work done closer to home and to have better control over the work being done. It also facilitates communication and collaboration between the company and the service provider.

“Offshoring” means engaging an outsourcing partner in a geographically distant country. This can present a number of challenges, such as language barriers, cultural differences, safety concerns and possible negative public perception. On the other hand, offshoring naturally has certain price advantages.

For both options, the roles in the collaboration and the type of reporting should be clearly defined. This way, the agreed IT services can be performed as desired and IT costs can be kept in check.

An important role in deciding between onshoring and offshoring should be the complexity of the work your company wants to outsource. Higher complexity is more in favor of onshoring.

soxes has employed project managers and developers in Vietnam, Poland and Switzerland. Thanks to many years of cooperation and a well-coordinated team, soxes can combine the price advantages of offshoring with the cultural advantages of onshoring.

soxes has the necessary know-how and experience for the support, maintenance and further development of complex software solutions. At the same time, as an outsourcing partner, soxes is agile enough to offer favorable conditions as well as professional consulting and support.

With soxes, you gain a partner with competence and reliability. For 20 years, our company has stood for the best quality in the development, programming and outsourcing of applications and infrastructure.