It Costs to Be Your Own IT Support

Every business beyond your children’s lemonade stand requires some sort of technical infrastructure and therefore must allow for IT support in some manner. Many businesses choose to provide this service with an assortment of talented but non-dedicated employees.

This system probably works well enough but it is inefficient, time intensive and, ultimately extremely costly. Not only are there the direct costs of paying your staff and providing the equipment but opportunities for business development are lost as you and your staff deal with IT problems. Other companies, however, have realized enormous benefits including cost savings and chosen to work with IT support companies.

The Benefits

The primary benefit of a third party IT support company is that you are able to concentrate on your core capabilities while your IT needs are also met by a group of experienced and knowledgeable technicians. These benefits manifest themselves in a variety of ways.

Lowered Payroll Costs

You’ve seen the situation before. A particular computer will not access the network and now you have the initial employee with the problem and three other “experts” brainstorming a solution. Undoubtedly, one of them will eventually hit upon a solution but, in the meantime, other functions, and thus, productivity suffers.

A much simpler solution is to your outsource IT support company deal with problem remotely. The costs of this highly trained team are leveraged across multiple clients so you get the expertise without the accompanying cost.

Efficient Utilization of Hard Assets

An experienced technical team can utilize your existing hardware assets in the most efficient manner. They can also recommend the best combination of new on-site equipment, cloud computing and hosting solutions.

If your needs increase, decrease or change in a more fundamental way, the associated costs are limited because a huge infrastructure has not been installed.

Lessened Down Time

A technically adept in-house tech may understand a problem and have a ready solution. Still, the fact that he is not dealing with these types of issues on a daily basis necessarily means that he will take a little more time than usual to implement the solution.

The repercussion of this lag time reverberate throughout an organization. Every department from HR to accounting and sales will be negatively affected. Most importantly, customers may encounter a poor or non-existent sales experience and simply migrate to a competitor’s website. It is imperative that network and IT problems be resolved in the most expeditious way possible.

Greater Security

An IT support company protects the proprietary of data numerous clients on a single platform and can leverage the costs of security across all of them. They are able to provide far security at a far more reasonable price than all but the largest companies.

In short, your company and clients deserve the greatest security possible and to outsource IT support is the best way to provide it.

The Results

There is no doubt that an intelligent in-house team can provide the very same end result as a managed IT services company but, at what cost? Higher payroll, excess equipment and the loss of significant amounts of time are just the beginning.

Clients simply do not understand that you cannot meet their needs in a timely manner. If your team or IT infrastructure is busy dealing with a problem, your customer service will suffer. In addition, there is the opportunity cost of lost business to pay.

At some point, every growing company makes the decision to switch to a professional IT support company. The more prescient ones do it sooner rather than later.