Over the years, the IT industry has been evolving rapidly. Today, you can find a lot of different services on the market including IT services, IT consulting, and software consulting companies. If you want to reach your business goals and objectives, you have to know which service can benefit you the most. But this can turn into a problem if you don’t know what is what.
The main differences are that IT services implement solutions and provide expertise to help businesses create and improve business processes. IT consulting focuses on providing strategic IT advice on how to modify or improve solutions to reach the desired goal.
Although they all appear similar, IT services, IT consulting, and software consulting companies are quite different. To help you out understand even further what each one of these is, and how it can improve your establishment, we compiled the following guide.
The Difference Between Software Consulting & Services
To best way to start tackling our topic is to show the difference between consulting services and services in general.
Software Consulting companies encompass a variety of actions focused on providing strategic advice and expertise. In the end, it is up to the client to consider the value of the strategic advice and decide whether or not to implement the suggested solutions in the company.
Whereas, with services, the situation is a bit different. A service provider will provide a service to your business. A service provider can be an individual or a company. In most cases, it is a type of contractor who provides a specific service to businesses or individuals.
What are IT Services?
There are many different IT services, but there is one thing that they all share. They are, in fact, the application of technical IT expertise and business knowledge to help business organizations create, and improve the management and optimization of business processes.
Sometimes, IT services can be focused only on improving and optimizing access to information. These services always result in useful deliverables. IT services can range from removing old or installing new equipment to trouble-shooting systems.
Beware though, very often you will see IT services used as a general term to describe a category that contains all IT-related services as well as IT consulting services.
What is IT Consulting?
IT consulting firms focus on providing strategic IT advice to companies or individuals. Most often, the target of IT consulting services is the existing IT infrastructure. An IT consulting firm will assess this infrastructure and provide advice on how to modify or improve to reach desired business goals.
IT consulting services can also benefit clients who are not familiar with tech solutions. With the help of an IT consultant, a company can easily adopt new technologies and strategies and align them with its business goals and objectives.
What is a Software Consulting Company?
Software consulting is also a considerably large niche. Software consulting encompasses different actions such as finding the perfect software solution for a given business model. Generally speaking, software consulting companies provide strategic software advice to their clients.
This doesn’t involve writing code or fixing bugs, but providing knowledge in the software field that can help a company optimize its processes and reach goals more efficiently.
The Difference Between IT Services & IT Consulting
The best way to understand this comparison is to take a look at the deliverables. IT services provide an end-to-end deal to clients. The deliverables of IT services are actual products. For example, it can be a website or a new IT infrastructure solution.
In any case, an IT service company will provide services that end up in deliverables you can use and experience. They have access to a rich toolbox, which they use to modify your IT infrastructure, improve it, and regularly maintain it.
The deliverables of IT consulting services are different. After assessing your business model and identifying your business needs, an IT consulting company will provide professional advice in terms of identifying the best solution for you. IT consultants often have IT service companies on hand to turn their ideas into actions.
The Difference Between IT Services & Software Consulting
The line between IT services and software consulting is not a blurred one. If we take the deliverables approach, you can easily spot the difference. Again, IT service companies provide services to their clients.
Software consulting is different. Thanks to their expertise and knowledge, software consultants are able to identify the best software for your company. They provide advice on which software to use, but their recommendations will often come with great detail. For instance, they will project the effectiveness of the software in terms of productivity, efficiency, revenue, and ROI.
The Difference Between IT Consulting & Software Consulting
People often think that software consulting is a synonym for IT consulting or software development. In reality, there is a drastic difference between IT consulting and software consulting. An IT consultant assesses the customer’s business environment and IT infrastructure and compares it against business goals. This information helps an IT consultant provide guidance on the overall IT strategy and the type of technology to be used.
A software consultant’s field of action is narrower than the one of an IT consultant. These experts focus on finding out the best software for a company and helping a company find out new ways to utilize the software.
Even though they belong to the IT sector, IT services, IT consulting, and software consulting are very different. Hopefully, the information we’ve provided will help you tell the difference between these three and assist you in finding the services your company can benefit the most from.
Fulton May Solutions is a Chicago-based provider of IT services and more that stand at your disposal for all things IT. Reach out to us today!
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