In the case of email, however—a service you do need all the time—is it the right choice to outsource? It is such an essential business component that it may seem counterintuitive at first, but in the end, the cost/benefit analysis may very well indicate that it is an expendable in-house process, and that outsourcing will ultimately prove beneficial.
Traditionally, companies have been reluctant to outsource those business functions that are absolutely essential. In-house operation of information technology is just such an essential element. It is a mission-critical, essential element of day-to-day business, but it has one complicating factor. Imagine the telephone service at your business. Your telephone service is essentially an outsourced business function. It is outsourced to the telephone company. When a customer or client calls your business, the call goes through and no thought is given to what telephone company operates your system. The same can be true for email. It does not necessarily differentiate one business from another, and offers no benefit from being somehow faster or clearer—email is essentially the same, no matter who operates the server.
With this understanding of email as a non-differentiating business function, you can see that outsourcing it to save money should not have an adverse effect on your business process.
