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Thinking about hiring your own internal IT
staff - think again!
Outsourcing your IT brings additional business
value.
Businesses today wrestle and grapple with the thought of
hiring their own technology support staff to support their daily need for IT
support without fully understanding the risks and the costs associated with
having their own team of technology professionals.Business owners, C
level execs and Managers are attracted to the idea of having a team or a
consultant readily available within shouting distance down the hall, basically
having an IT resource committed to them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However,
many of today's business owners across the country are not aware of the total
risks their business is exposed to by electing to bring their technology support
in-house.More often than not it is purely a cost based decision, on
the surface it may appear to be more cost effective to hire a consultant or
employee who is committed as a full time employee. CFOs and Accounting Managers
often look only at the cost of having their IT outsourced and or attracted to
hiring someone for a few thousand dollars a month as part of their staff will
save their company in the long run. This is not the case in reality and by
having a full time employee will actually end up costing business today more in
the long run.So what are the advantages of having an IT Partner who
focuses on delivering a complete managed technology solution? There are a number
of immediate benefits over having a full time employee. These benefits include:
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The average technology professional with five years experience may be worth
$60,000 a year. This is great when you looking at the bills from your IT
provider and see that you have probably spent paid the same in their
consulting bills for only a fraction of the time. When a business elects to
go internal, a $60,000 salary now buys the business one person and not a
team of professionals offering depth in expertise and knowledge.
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IT Partners will provide around the clock monitoring and coverage throughout
the entire term of the contract. When a company hires their own IT staff,
now the challenges around vacation scheduling, training and time off from
illness impacts the company. An outsourced IT Partner provided full time
coverage, vacations, illness and other absences now are not an impact on
your technology support.
There are hidden additional costs when a business elects to
hire internally. The costs associated with training can rise rapidly, when you
have a trusted IT partner, training is no longer the company's challenge. The IT
partner ensures that the skills of their team are up to date. Combine this with
costs associated with procurement of equipment that include SmartPhones, laptops
and other supplies can quickly add up and then there is the added payroll
expenses associated with healthcare, payroll and others logistical items.
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IT partners can offer a wealth of knowledge and great resources when needed,
offering networks of partners who can help geographical and even across
town. When a company turns to hiring their own staff, this experience often
is not available to them and they are stuck with just a single person or a
very small team with limited expertise. Now when these skills are required
outside of the skills level of their staff, this is now an additional
expense that normally the right IT partner can extend to a company as part
of their program.
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IT technicians always like to be challenged even the ones that you hire.
What happens at the average company when the challenges stop occurring?
Boredom is disastrous. There are two possible outcomes that occur with
in-house staff who deal with challenges with boredom.
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They choose to leave to seek out challenges - When a company loses a
member of their own internal staff, the intellectual property and
knowledge goes with them. This leaves a huge void in the understanding
of your systems and network layout. With a trusted IT partner, this
knowledge is retained and companies continue to function as if nothing
occurred.
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They decide to adopt "make work" projects - When this occurs it can be
disastrous as well. Many make work projects are the result of boredom
and complacency because of lack of challenges. When make work projects
appear, what isn't getting done is the attention to the daily needs of
your systems and network. Make works projects are distractions and your
IT partner doesn't worry about finding stuff to do on your network. The
daily attention to your systems is still the main focus of their
services.
Michael Fafinski, President of Syand Corporation in
Minneapolis states about the value of having a full service IT partner can bring
to a company, "having a full feature IT partner eliminates the "tunnel vision"
found with internal employees. Too often, employers are limited only by the
expertise of their internal employees and lose opportunities to improve their
business."Many firms that elect to go with their own in-house IT
person, more often than not resent this decision down the road. What seemed like
a great idea quickly turns into a huge business mistake that ends up costing
them.Randy Biggs from VACS in St. Catharines, Ontario shares "Hiring
a trusted IT partners allows a company to have access to many additional
certified resources without having to keep paying for their staff to get
certified. I find that with hired staff, you get one of two types. One that
always wants the latest and greatest that many companies cannot afford to keep
up with and the second, someone who becomes complacent and only does what needs
done. In either case, they aren't looking out for the best interest of the
company."When a company elects to retain an outsourced firm over
hiring internal, they are getting service from a company who is focused on
ensuring the IT needs are being addressed in the most efficient manner possible.
Many trusted IT partners are focused on the bigger picture, ensuring everything
is looked after in a company's environment including:
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Vendor Relations
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IT Budgeting
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Network Monitoring and Proactive IT services
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Knowledge Base Management
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Disaster Recovery Planning
Partnering with a trusted IT Partner brings value to any
business no matter what the size, what makes more sense to you? Limiting the
knowledge, options and having to deal with people challenges such as complacency
and boredom or expanding available options by having a wonderful relationship
with a trusted IT partner who understands what business needs to grow, increase
profits and the importance of the right technology solution.
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