Small firms could profit by outsourcing their IT operations, it has been claimed.

Jag Dalal, managing director for the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP), believes there are "many compelling reasons" a firm should look at IT outsourcing.

Among these are reduced costs and accesses to people with specialist expertise, the latter of which would reduce the of risk things going wrong, Mr Dalal said.

He added that outsourcing will also remove the need for SMEs to invest both time and money in changing internal organisational structures.

"Cost savings is but one of the benefits and in many cases it is 'cheaper' when you consider the total cost of service - investment as well as operational costs," Mr Dalal went on to say.

He concluded by pointing out that firms which have been hit by the credit crunch might also be able to use outsourcing as a way to address their problems with liquidity.

Yesterday, a survey by Deloitte revealed that 83 per cent of firms engaged in outsourcing achieve a return on investment of more than 25 per cent.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent) In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'