5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Hire An In-house IT-Person
Your technology is crucial for your business. Your livelihood depends on it. If your systems are down, your business is down.
It’s as simple as that.
That’s why you need someone to keep your technology in perfect condition. You need somebody to handle your IT.
There are several ways to do this:
- Keep it in-house. Let one of your current employees take up IT-tasks, or hire somebody to become a dedicated IT-administrator.
- Outsource your IT. Have someone else do it for you. There are many companies who are specialized in solving your technology problems for you – against a small fee.
Should You Hire An In-House IT-Administrator Or Outsource?
Most small businesses decide to keep their IT in-house.
They think this is the cheaper option, and it sounds like the easy way to do it. But they might be making a big mistake. And this can cost them a LOT of money in the future.
Let me explain.
Here, I’ll give you 5 reasons why solving your IT-problems in-house can be a big mistake – and why outsourcing your IT to a Managed Service Provider can save you a lot of time and money.
Reason #1 They Are Expensive
The biggest reason why most small companies decide to keep their IT-management in-house is because they think it’s cheaper.
But they couldn’t be more wrong.
What looks cheap on the surface, actually ends up being a lot more expensive once you do the math. Depending on who you hire, the price can go up fast.
- It starts at around $35,000 a year for a halfway competent local IT-administrator that’s brand new to the industry.
- For $50,000 to $75,000 a year, you’ll get a quality IT-administrator who has some good experience, good knowledge, and is fairly versatile in a variety of technology problems.
- At $80,000 and higher is where you’ll be able to hire the real experts that can solve a wide variety of problems you encounter.
But those are just the base costs.
You’ll also have to pay for social benefits: health care (for him and his family), a 401k, and a retirement plan. Then comes the equipment. Your new IT-provider needs office space, cell phones and computers to work with.
And these costs add up quickly.
That cheap looking in-house IT-person can become expensive really fast. Before you know it, you need to pay them nearly DOUBLE their base salary. And it’s coming right out of your pocket. You’re stuck with high monthly expenses you’ll have to pay over and over again.
Outsourcing your IT-management to a Managed Service Provider is a lot cheaper. You’ll just pay a flat fee, and that’s it. You don’t have to pay social benefits. You don’t have to buy them equipment. They’ll pay for that all themselves.
Many small companies save up to 50% to 75% of the costs by outsourcing their IT to a Managed Service Provider, instead of hiring an internal IT-person. And they get better service that’s always available in return.
Reason #2: They’re Not Always There When You Need Them
When you hire in-house, you’re dependent on one single person. And that one person won’t always there.
They’ll have to take time off as well. They go on a vacation. They get sick, or have to go to a doctor. Or they’re stuck at home because their kids have snow days.
If you run into a technical problem when your IT-person is not at work, you’re in trouble. You can’t contact anybody to help you. And you’ll have to wait until they’re back at the office to fix it.
When you outsource your IT-management, you won’t have this problem.
The Managed Service Provider who handles your IT has a team of experts. When one of them falls away, the other people will still be there to help you – no matter what happens.
By outsourcing your IT, you will always have a team that’s there for you when you need them. Call them whenever you want, and you’ll be helped in no-time.
Reason #3: They’re Only Good At Solving Part Of The Problem
Even if you’re willing to spend big money on an IT-person and hire a superstar, you still only have one person on staff. And that’s a problem.
Because one person working by themselves will never be as good as a team is.
Technology is too complex to be mastered by one single person. IT consists of many different fields. And nobody good at all of these. Each technician has a limited, specific skillset. They’re an expert at some fields, and bad at others.
When you depend on one IT-person, you depend on the particular strengths and weaknesses of that single person. If they’re bad at a certain field, then your systems will be vulnerable to those type of problems.
They might be a jack-of-all-trades and know a little bit about everything. But they just don’t have the breadth of skills that an outsourced IT-provider can provide.
You need a team of experts to cover all weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
That’s exactly what a Managed Service Provider offers. They have carefully selected a team of experienced professional technicians to make sure that they have an expert in each field. They have all areas covered. And their strengths and weaknesses cancel each other out.
No matter which problem you encounter, they have skilled technician available who is an expert at solving that specific problem.
A single IT-person just can’t do that – no matter how good they are.
Reason #4: They Have Limited Technical Expertise
Since an internal IT-person only working on IT in one company, they don’t not exposed to many different situations. They keep on seeing the same problems over and over again, and only see the small picture of what’s happening in their specific company
But technology moves fast.
It’s hard to keep up with the latest developments, opportunities and dangers of what happens in IT. And before you know it, the limited technical knowledge of your employee is outdated, and technology has passed them by.
A single IT-administrator just isn’t exposed to enough variety of problems to keep their knowledge up to date.
A Managed Service Provider is.
They manage the IT-problems for many businesses at the same time. And because they’re constantly dealing with so many problems in their day-to-day business, they see what’s happening in real-time.
This keeps them up to date on all the latest developments. And it helps them identify patterns faster because of the volume of problems they see.
All of their technicians have a background dealing with IT in big and small companies, so they know exactly what the best practices are. They can use the expertise gained by managing other businesses’ problems to solve your problems as well.
The result?
They’re able to spot issues a local IT-administrator won’t see. And they can solve your problems a lot faster than somebody who has to figure it out for the first time.
Reason #5: They Waste Money Doing Unnecessary Things
The job of an internal IT-administrator is to solve problems. But sometimes, there are no problems to fix. And when things are running smoothly, you don’t need them around.
In order to keep his job, your internal IT-administrator will invent reasons why you would need to keep them around. They will do whatever they can to make them seem necessary and important to the business.
And that’s when things start going wrong.
Instead of making things simpler, they’ll come up with complex systems that will require them to operate it for you.
Local IT-administrators also waste money on stuff you don’t need. They constantly buy new equipment and test it out, even when it’s not necessary.
That’s a bad use of your company’s money.
When you outsource your IT-management, you don’t have that problem.
An MSP is on your side – their incentives are aligned with yours. They will only advise you to get something if it makes the system more stable. They will only buy something if it’s absolutely necessary. Because if it’s not, that will only mean more work for you and them – which neither of you wants.
When a Managed Service Provider wants to experiment, they usually try it out on their own dime first¸ before implementing it in your company.
Stop wasting money on stuff you don’t need. With a Managed Service Provider, YOU are the one who is in charge.
Let The Experts Handle Your IT
Many small businesses want to save costs when trying to solve IT-problems. So instead of hiring a dedicated IT-administrator, they sometimes end up having one employee take up some IT-tasks.
That’s a big mistake.
Putting a regular team-member to work in IT is a bad idea for several reasons:
- They’re not an expert at IT. They might be able to solve some basic problems, but they won’t be able to help you when a big problem comes around.
- Technology is just not what they are best at. You hired that person for a different position, which they’re good at. That person will be put to better use if you employ them somewhere else in the company.
If you already have an internal IT-administrator on staff, take a look if they’re really well-suited to do that job. If not, move them to a role they’re better equipped to doing. Put them to use in the position that’s best for them, and leave your IT to experts.
Conclusion: Save Money By Hiring A Managed Service Provider
Although most small business owners think they need to have an internal IT-person on staff, they really don’t.
The better decision is to outsource your IT to a trusted Managed Service Provider, and save yourself a lot of money.
They are cheaper. Better at solving your IT-problems. And they’re always available when you need them.
The incentives of a MSP are aligned with yours. They do whatever they can to keep your systems stable and downtime to a minimum.
The more stable your system is, the less need you have for them to fix your problems. The better it is for the both of you. Technology problems will no longer interrupt your days, and you can focus on getting work done.
At Digital Data Communications, that’s exactly what we do.
We take care of your IT-problems, so you can focus on running your business and increasing your revenue – without interruptions.
Take a look at the services we offer to see what we can do for you.
Many small businesses are skeptical when they first learn about our services. But once they try it, and enjoy how convenient it is, they’ll never go back.
Still not sure what to do?
Try using our services for three months without a contract, and see for yourself how convenient it is.
