With so many in-house and outsourced IT options out there, it can be hard to decide what’s best for your company. Figuring out what will work best for your company largely depends on the kind of support your business needs. There are a few aspects to consider when making the decision on how to handle your IT needs. Here’s a list of business-specific factors to consider when deciding whether or not managed IT support is right for your organization.

Resources

Did you know that the average employee spends 22 minutes per day dealing with IT-related issues? That’s nearly two hours per week! Two hours they could be spending working on other, more profitable, projects.

While you can build an IT team familiar with the specific needs of your company, this takes time… and money. There will always be new certifications and training they will need in order to stay up-to-date on the latest compliance regulations, trends, and information technology issues. If you have the time and funds to devote to this endeavor, great! It can be really handy to have an in-house IT team that knows the ins and outs of your business. However, if you don’t, outsourcing your IT support will ensure you have experts handling IT issues that arise while also allowing you and your employees to focus their time on growing your business as opposed to fixing technology-related issues.

Level of Expertise

The software, processes, and requirements your business has will ultimately determine how experienced your IT team needs to be. Smaller businesses in industries that don’t deal with confidential information (i.e. medical records, financial information, etc.) can afford to have a less-seasoned team. If that’s the case for your business, you can likely get away with having an internal team with general experience. However, if you’re a larger organization with many compliance regulations to abide by, an expert-level team that’s skilled in providing managed IT support for a variety of companies will be best.

With an internal team, you can bring in a specialist for occasional issue-specific challenges. With an outsourced one, you have access to these specialists as a part of your monthly fee.  

Availability

If you outsource your managed IT services, you have helpdesk support available to you 24/7, 365 days a year. Whenever you call, they will be able to help, no matter the time of day or week. With internal support, you’ll have the benefit of someone (or a team) being on-site. However, you will be at the mercy of their schedule. If they are sick or on vacation, you may be left without access to an IT expert. As Murphy’s Law has it, those are typically the times in which issues arise.

Additionally, an internal team may quickly get bogged down with projects. An external team is always available no matter how many or how big the issues.

If You Decide to Outsource

If you have questions or concerns about contracting out your IT services, contact us. We’re happy to speak with you about the pros and cons of having an external vendor take care of your information technology support. At PRO Oncall, your IT needs are always our priority.