Bringing IT home: the ins and outs of tech staffing.

• Author: Fields, Melissa
• Position: Information technology

IT'S NO SECRET THAT MANY companies across the United States are looking outside their organization, and even overseas, to solve information technology challenges. Consultants perform everything from network maintenance to customer service without the overhead of a full-time staff. And when budgets tighten, managers often find it much easier to cut a consultant than an in-house technical team member. But because consultants need to support a full docket of clients to be profitable, the time it takes them to solve IT problems can often fall well behind that of in-house technical support.

So how does a company decide whether to in-house or outsource their technical needs? "It depends on product cycles," says Spencer Schaffer, president of ConsultNet, a Utah-based technology consulting and executive recruitment firm. According to Schaffer, if a company finds itself in a staffing shortfall on the verge of a new product rollout, hiring an in-house consultant is the most common way to address the challenge. But if maintenance or updating is the issue, outsourcing is often the more efficient use of resources.

Schaffer uses the model of the rise in corporations' Web presence in 2000 as an example. "After Y2K, everybody wanted a Web page, but for little else other than a marketing tool, which, since it didn't involve the nuts and bolts of product development, was a good opportunity for outsourcing," Schaffer says. "Now, in the second phase of the Internet, corporations want to make their Web sites more functional for both internal and external use. With this surge in demand for new technology, we're seeing the recruitment side of our business more active."

In the early part of this decade, cost caused companies across the country to embrace offshore outsourcing. Basing technical support staff outside the U.S. became one of the most popular ways for software companies to solve customer support issues. Indeed, anyone with a home computer who has called a technical support line in the last few years has most likely spoken to a representative in India. Along with cost savings, one of the strongest reasons for the outsourcing trend is the U.S.'s shrinking labor pool.

But offshore outsourcing has not been without setbacks and changes. Cultural and language barriers caused several Fortune 500 companies to pare back offshore IT outsourcing, while increasing costs of doing business have brought many call centers back to the United States. Many still use...