Handling The IT Needs Of Your Business

Technology is an inevitable part of every business today. It is a critical element in establishing your competitive advantage as well as in order to measure and benchmark your success against the industry. Given the critical nature of technology, every business strives to have an IT department in their company. However, this backfires for several reasons. Firstly, not all businesses require the same level of focus on technology. For instance, if you are running a B2B supplies distribution firm, you may need an ERP to manage resources. But a dedicated IT manager may be wasteful expenditure. In such cases, the IT department in companies often comes across as a bloated cost center that does not have sufficient projects to justify the costs. The following options may come in handy if you run a business where you want a substitute to your full time IT staff.

Managed Services

One of the popular ways to eliminate the need for an in-house IT staff is to hire businesses that offer managed services. The task of these firms is to proactively monitor, manage and fix problems in the IT infrastructure of the clientele. From a budget perspective, managed services help in drastically bringing down the IT costs of the companies while improving the efficiency of the individual processes being managed.

Third Party Migration Services

A disproportionately large percentage of businesses have in-house IT staff whose sole responsibility is to check for the latest updates from the various software installed and initiate migration to the latest versions. While the importance of updating to the latest versions cannot be emphasized enough, it is still a colossal waste of money having an in-house team do this. Depending on the kind of tools and software you have deployed for your business, the migration may either be automated or outsourced. For instance, you may upgrade from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2013 with third party services that focus entirely on such projects. Similarly, there are third party services that help you with the migration of your virus definition files, your productivity software applications and custom technology tools for your industry.

Contractors

If your business requires periodic IT related work may not be outsourced to remote third party firms, then it makes sense to hire people on a contract basis. Contractors and consultants (depending on your requirement) are paid by the hour and are recruited for a few months at a stretch. Since they are not full time employees, you may reduce your costs on health benefits and insurance. Also, since contract positions are on a fixed duration basis, it not only reduces paper-work but also helps in ensuring the productivity of the workers are high throughout the project duration.

There are other ways to eliminate IT staff. For instance internships for small technology needs is a very popular option. But these options mandate at least a few of your in-house staff to be aware of the technology needs. This may or may not work for all businesses and is hence not a very recommended option. In what other ways do businesses outsource their in-house IT needs? Tell us in the comments.

 

[Dhruv Bindhani]

Technology is undeniably integral to modern business, offering competitive advantages and benchmarks for success. However, maintaining an in-house IT department isn't always the most efficient or cost-effective solution for every company. As the provided text points out, for businesses that don't require constant, high-level IT focus – such as a B2B supplies distribution firm that might only need an ERP system – a full-time IT manager can be a wasteful expenditure, turning the IT department into a "bloated cost center."

To address this, businesses have several viable alternatives to a full-time in-house IT staff:

1. Managed Services:
   
   • This involves hiring external firms to proactively monitor, manage, and fix problems within a company's IT infrastructure.
   • Benefits: Drastically reduces IT costs, improves the efficiency of managed individual processes, and ensures continuous system health.
2. Third-Party Migration Services:
   
   • Many in-house IT staff spend significant time on software updates and migrations. The text argues that this is a "colossal waste of money" for an in-house team.
   • Benefits: Specialized third-party services can handle complex migrations (e.g., upgrading from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2013), as well as updates for virus definitions, productivity software, and custom industry tools. These services often have automated processes or dedicated expertise that makes the migration faster and more efficient.
3. Contractors:
   
   • For businesses with periodic IT needs that require on-site presence or specialized skills not warranting a full-time hire, contractors or consultants are a flexible solution.
   • Benefits: Paid by the hour for fixed durations, reducing costs associated with health benefits and insurance. This model also simplifies paperwork and can ensure high productivity throughout a project.

While the article mentions internships as another option for small technology needs, it cautions that this requires existing in-house staff to have some technological awareness, making it less universally recommended.

Beyond these points, businesses commonly outsource their IT needs in several other ways:

• IT Staff Augmentation: This involves hiring external IT professionals to supplement an existing in-house team, filling skill gaps or increasing capacity for specific projects without the commitment of full-time employment. This is particularly useful for niche expertise (e.g., cybersecurity, AI, blockchain) that might be too costly or difficult to find and retain in-house.
• Project-Based Outsourcing: Instead of hiring individual contractors for specific tasks, businesses can outsource an entire IT project to a third-party vendor. The vendor takes full ownership of the project's management, development, and delivery, often with a fixed scope, timeline, and deliverables. This is ideal for projects with clear requirements, such as custom software development, mobile app creation, or website development.
• Help Desk and Technical Support: Many businesses outsource their user support functions, from basic troubleshooting to advanced technical assistance. This provides 24/7 support availability, reduces internal workload, and ensures users have immediate access to specialized help.
• Cloud Services Management: As more businesses move to cloud-based infrastructure (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), managing these environments can be complex. Outsourcing cloud management ensures optimal performance, security, and cost efficiency.
• Cybersecurity Services: With the increasing threat of cyberattacks, businesses often outsource cybersecurity functions like threat monitoring, vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and incident response to specialized firms. This provides access to advanced expertise and tools that would be prohibitively expensive to build in-house.
• Data Backup and Disaster Recovery: Ensuring business continuity is critical. Outsourcing data backup, recovery, and disaster recovery planning guarantees that data is secure and systems can be restored quickly in case of an outage or disaster.
• Network Management: External providers can manage a company's network infrastructure, including monitoring network performance, ensuring uptime, and troubleshooting connectivity issues.
• Software Development Outsourcing: For businesses that need custom software but don't have an in-house development team, outsourcing the entire software development lifecycle (from design to deployment and maintenance) is a common practice.
• IT Consulting: Beyond execution, businesses often engage IT consultants for strategic guidance on technology adoption, infrastructure planning, digital transformation, and optimizing IT spend.

By leveraging these various outsourcing models, businesses can gain access to specialized expertise, reduce operational costs, increase flexibility and scalability, improve efficiency, and allow their core internal teams to focus on strategic initiatives that drive business growth.