In 2019, it’s just about impossible to run a successful business without an experienced and knowledgeable IT team on your side. But that does not mean that you need to spend a fortune putting together an entire IT department.
There are currently more than 100,000 companies capable of supplying your business with the software and IT services you need. Instead of developing your own IT team, you can lean on them for hardware and software support.
There are so many reasons for outsourcing your IT support rather than creating an in-house team of IT professionals. You should strongly consider doing it before you sink a bunch of money into an IT department that you may not even need.
Let’s take a closer look at the 10 best reasons for outsourcing IT support to another company. It’ll show you why outsourcing might be in the best interests of your business.
1. Saves Money
We already alluded to the fact that hiring an entire IT team can be quite costly. But we want to drive that point home by telling you more about how much you can expect to pay to put IT professionals on your full-time staff.
Here are the average salaries associated with some of the most common IT positions:
- Systems Administrator: $82,321 per year
- IT Technician: $72,656 per year
- Network Engineer: $88,134 per year
As you can see, you’re not going to be able to get away with hiring a few hourly employees if you decide to create an IT team. You’re going to need to invest hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars every year into IT alone.
That simply doesn’t make sense for every company. By outsourcing your IT support instead, you can spend just a small fraction of what you would pay for full-time IT professionals.
2. Eliminates the Need for IT Training
Let’s say that you hire a bunch of IT professionals straight out of school to work for your company. Since they’re fresh out of college, they’re on the lower end of the spectrum as far as salary is concerned, and they also just got done learning all the latest IT lessons in school.
It’s a perfect setup, right? Right—until they’ve worked for your company for about 6 months or maybe a year and need to go back to school for additional training to keep up with the IT world.
The thing about IT is that it’s a field that’s always changing. An IT professional can know everything there is to know about different computer systems one day and know next-to-nothing about them the next day. It can be tough to keep up!
You’ll be in charge of helping the IT professionals who work for you to stay up-to-date on everything related to IT. And that will, of course, require money for additional IT training courses.
It’ll also require time off for your employees so that they can learn the skills they’ll need to keep your company current. It can prevent them from doing their jobs on certain days and leave your company open to potential IT problems when they’re not around.
3. Frees Up Office Space
Believe it or not, there’s yet another way in which hiring full-time IT professionals for your business will cost your company money.
When you bring an IT team on board, you’re going to need to find somewhere to put them in your office. There’s a good chance that they’re going to need plenty of room, too, for all the equipment that they use throughout the course of a day. This could force you to pay more than you want for office space.
When you outsource your IT support instead, you’ll save so much space in your office. It’ll allow your company to grow into the space rather than having to cram everyone and everything inside of it.
4. Reduces Strain on the HR Department
The IT industry is growing by leaps and bounds at the moment as more and more technology is introduced into the business world. As a result, there are dozens of in-demand IT jobs in 2019.
Some of these jobs include:
- Cybersecurity engineer
- Full stack developer
- Java developer
- Cloud engineer
- And more
Not all companies need to fill all of these types of positions. But if your company is going to commit to creating an IT team, you’re going to need to hire people to fill at least some of them.
And since many of these IT jobs are so in demand, it’s not going to be easy for your HR department to fill all of them quickly. IT has turned into a competitive field, which has given IT professionals plenty of options. So your HR team will have to work extra hard to recruit IT employees and entice them to work for your business.
If you decide to outsource your IT support instead, it’ll take a weight off your HR department’s shoulders. They’ll be able to focus on filling other positions within your company instead of setting their sights almost solely on filling IT jobs.
5. Makes Employees More Productive
There are many smaller companies that try to get away with not having an in-house IT team or outsourced IT support by relying on one or two full-time employees to address IT issues as they come up.
Getting John from accounting or Lucy from HR to fill in and fix computer problems every now and then might work for a little while. But it’s not a long-term solution to your IT problem! Eventually, John and Lucy’s job performance is going to suffer when they’re called on to do too much IT work.
Outsourcing your IT support will free up John and Lucy’s time again and allow them to focus on the job you originally hired them to do. Your entire company will run more efficiently and be more productive with IT support outsourcing.
6. Prevents Major Tech Problems
If your company relies on technology in any capacity, there are going to be times when the tech is going to give you issues. Your in-office internet is going to stop working and individual computers are going to give your employees fits.
You need to have someone around who can tackle these problems quickly and prevent your whole office from going haywire due to a tech issue. Your outsourced IT support will be there when you need them to fix your issues in no time.
At the same time, you won’t have to pay IT employees to sit around and do nothing on the days when there aren’t any issues to deal with. This will be the best of both worlds for many businesses.
7. Provides a Wide Range of IT Services
When the average person thinks about IT services, they think about someone fixing a computer that won’t turn on or wiping a virus off a PC. They also think about someone helping someone else get access to their email or installing an updated version of the latest operating system on their Mac.
These are actually some of the most basic IT services there are, though. Your company is going to need more advanced services as you grow.
For example, recent studies have shown that about 70 percent of people around the world are working remotely at least once every week. If you have some employees doing it, you’re going to need to make sure your network is secure enough to allow them to work remotely.
Doing this takes a lot more work than fixing a computer or installing a new piece of software. It could very well be outside the scope of services that an in-house IT team is capable of providing to you.
But when you outsource IT support, you’ll be able to rest assured knowing that you’ll receive whichever IT services you need. Your IT consulting will be able to handle everything from managed services and cloud services to disaster recovery and email solutions.
8. Keeps Technology Up to Date
Do you suspect that your company is leaning a little too heavily on outdated tech in your office? Don’t stress out too much about it.
There are actually some major organizations, including the Department of Defense and the Secret Service, that are still using technology that’s way out of date.
But if you think your company could benefit from a technological makeover, an outsourced IT company can advise you on the best path to take. They’ll know the ins and outs as far as the most recent tech is concerned and be able to make suggestions on it and help you maintain it once you set it up.
9. Stresses the Important of IT Maintenance
Far too many companies set up in-house IT teams and demand that they spend their days running around putting out fires. These companies react to tech problems rather than being proactive when it comes to tech.
When you establish a relationship with an outsourced IT company, you’ll find that you’ll learn how to be proactive quickly. You won’t want to part ways with any more money than you have to in order to deal with tech issues. So you’ll get into the habit of maintaining tech properly to avoid problems with it in the first place.
10. Allows You to Focus on Other Areas
As we mentioned back at the beginning, it’s virtually impossible to run a successful business in 2019 without spending at least some time focused on IT. But that doesn’t mean it should be your only focus!
By outsourcing IT support and letting someone else worry about IT, you can spend more time thinking about the future of your company. It’ll be someone else’s job to worry about the technology that’s driving your company forward.
Consider These Reasons for Outsourcing IT Support
Business owners have so many reasons for outsourcing IT support. It’ll save you money, prevent stress, and give your employees a chance to focus on what they need to be doing day in and day out.
Just make sure you track down the right IT company for the job. Spend time interviewing a bunch of different companies until you find one that you know will be able to handle all your IT needs.
Read our blogs to learn some other tips for keeping your business running smoothly.