In-House vs. Outsourced IT Support: Which Is Right For Your Company?

Choosing between in-house IT support or external outsourced support is eventually inevitable. At some point, small and medium-sized businesses are faced with the task of deciding how to move forward with their IT. Outsourcing brings additional value to your operations because it allows to focus on your business core. IT should not be a challenge to your growth, it should be an incentive for improvement and expansion. The support, expertise, and value that MSPs bring to the table are unparalleled. Why worry about recruiting, redundancy, response time, security, and experience when your IT company can handle all these crucial elements for you?

Let us analyze and review some fundamental aspects that need to be considered when deciding whether to keep IT in-house or outsource it.

Workforce and Redundancy

An effective in-house IT support requires a minimum of 3 dedicated IT personnel. For small and medium-sized businesses, this is an entirely new department that must be accounted for, along with physical space to operate, hardware, custom software apps for business  and everything else all employees need. Another challenge, and perhaps the decisive one, is the cost necessary to keep 3 good IT employees full-time.

o Sick days, vacations, unexpected events, these are common items that get overlooked when choosing between internal or external IT support. When outsourced, the service provider will ensure that time-off is covered and that clients are not left without support. Your Managed Service Provider should have a contingency plan in place for such events to ensure support is provided year-round.

Experience and Qualifications

•  It is perfectly possible for companies to hire and maintain experienced and highly qualified IT resources, but it comes at a cost. Furthermore, it is difficult to find one or a few professionals that will cover most areas of the IT spectrum. IT has evolved rapidly in the last few decades, and it is still going through major changes and upgrades, so ongoing learning is required.
•  MSPs have different customers with different needs, so technicians and experts need to be constantly trained to keep up with technology. This comes at a cost for MSPs, but that cost is spread out through its pool of clients, so the burden does not fall under one company alone. In-house IT will also need to keep up to date with the latest technologies, but in this instance the company has no one else to share the costs with.
•  With a third-party support team, the wider range of expertise translates to better support. The level of support provided by MSPs comes at a fraction of the cost if compared to the same level of support an internal IT team would provide.

 Tech To U has the expertise, experience, reliability and trust that qualifies us to work with your company in any IT model you choose, whether it is completely outsourcing IT responsibility to us or working together in a hybrid fashion. We have been in business for nearly 25 years and have a wide range of satisfied clients in all sorts of industries, ranging from construction and engineering to non-profits and oil & gas. Find out how your IT can and will help you grow by calling Tech To U!