After losing considerable ground during the recession, the percentage of companies that outsource at least some of their web and e-commerce operations appears to be rebounding significantly, especially over the past two years.
As shown in Figure 2 from our study, Web/E-Commerce Outsourcing Trends and Customer Experience, about 61% of organizations are now outsourcing some web/e-commerce work, which is up sharply from the 55% frequency we recorded in 2013 and 52% frequency in 2012.
The outsourcing of web and e-commerce systems has always been popular, but it appears to be gaining new strength as consumers gravitate toward the web and as organizations of all kinds, from manufacturers to professional services firms, expand their online marketing, social networking, cloud computing, and supply chain management activities.
As IT organizations reassess their online strategies, they are turning to outsourcing partners that can provide a flexible, scaled approach to Internet infrastructure and systems. The rise in web operations outsourcing also corresponds with lackluster investment in data center infrastructure.
To help IT executives better assess their options in this always changing landscape, the full study reports the percentage of organizations outsourcing web/e-commerce operations (frequency), the average amount of work outsourced (level), and the change to the amount of work being outsourced (trend). We also present data on cost and service experience and on how these trends differ by organization size and sector.
This Research Byte is a brief overview of our report on this subject, Web/E-Commerce Outsourcing Trends and Customer Experience. The full report is available at no charge for Computer Economics clients, or it may be purchased by non-clients directly from our website (click for pricing).