As your business grows and evolves, you will inevitably come to that fork in the road where you need to decide what IT Services should be kept in-house and what can be outsourced. In fact, more than a third of small businesses outsource at least some of their operations, with IT outsourcing being one of the largest global industries, expected to reach 397.6 billion USD by 2025.
You may wonder, how do I decide what aspects of my IT should be outsourced? Don’t worry. We’re here to walk you through it, with recommendations on what services or tasks are best to outsource to an experienced Managed IT provider.
A Better Understanding of Outsourcing
Outsourcing doesn’t necessarily mean moving your operations to an overseas provider. In the context of small to medium businesses, outsourcing can mean utilizing a network of freelancers or contractors to perform specialized tasks, or to fill gaps in your in-house teams. Outsourcing can involve hiring an accounting firm to take care of the bookkeeping or subcontracting a security company to watch over your business location.
IT outsourcing involves hiring an outside Managed Services Provider (MSP) to take on most, if not all, of your IT needs. And it’s not something new – 74% of businesses outsource IT. Often, it’s more cost effective, and it saves you time, because you can focus on other areas of your business. MSPs can offer support that extends past regular business hours and they provide specialized talent and expertise that’s often difficult to source and retain in-house.
Recent data shows that the cost to hire or replace a new employee can run upwards of $9,000 per person. To replace staff in technological companies can cost even more than that, around $125,000 per vacancy! It’s much easier to hire an MSP as your IT outsourcer. You only pay for what you need, and you have trained professionals at the ready that don’t require employment insurance, health benefits, paid vacation, or sick leave.
What IT Services Should be Kept In-house and What Can Be Outsourced?
Companies often outsource some of their IT functions. According to Statista, 51% tend to outsource software maintenance, 32% their IT infrastructure and Help Desk, 29% use outsourced IT providers to monitor and manage their networks, while 12% outsource their entire IT department.
When it’s time to decide what IT services should be kept inhouse and what can be outsourced, we have a few recommendations. It can be costly to outsource everything, so here are the services that are best left to a professional MSP.
Repetitive IT Tasks That Can’t Be Automated
Don’t waste your precious company resources and in-house talent on repetitive tasks. If a job can’t be automated, it can be outsourced. Things like routine IT maintenance, time-consuming tasks like system updates and backups that are critical to performance, or any day-to-day IT needs can be delegated to an MSP, so you’re never distracted from your specialization.
System Security
With the increase in work-from-home arrangements, cloud solutions and storage, and more business functions going online, cybercrime has continued to rise. Over the last two decades, data breaches have increased almost tenfold and the average cost to ‘fix’ a business’ breach was $9 million USD! It can take a lot of effort and resources to keep ahead of cyber threats. Instead of diverting attention from your core business, it’s best to hire professional IT security providers like Com Pro, who can make your data security their full-time job.
Maintenance of Hardware
One of the best decisions you can make is to outsource your hardware maintenance. Who has time to go around sourcing, updating, and replacing all outdated or inefficient hardware? An MSP can troubleshoot any hardware issues, take care of routine maintenance tasks, and use their expertise to guide you toward better investments in technology, all for a reduced, flat monthly fee.
IT Assessments & Improvements
It’s often best to gain some outside perspective, especially when it comes to assessing your IT infrastructure, your security requirements, and your plans to scale up, to ensure that you have everything your company needs to grow. This is where an external assessment can be helpful. Outside observers can quickly uncover inefficiencies, gaps, and areas for improvement. They can help you build a more robust IT infrastructure that can give your company a competitive edge in your respective industry.
Cloud Solutions & Computing
Over 95% of companies use cloud computing in some form or another, with small businesses running over 80% of their workloads on the cloud. Hosting your own cloud-based system can be expensive and time-consuming. By outsourcing your cloud computing you can still digitize your operations to remain competitive, while delegating the responsibility for backups, updates, and security to a team of IT experts. In fact, according to Gartner, by 2022, 60% of organizations will use an external service provider’s cloud managed service.
Conclusion
Now that you have a better idea what IT services should be kept in-house and what can be outsourced, you can make informed decisions about which Managed IT provider ticks all the right boxes.
Com Pro offers amazing cloud solutions, IT security, hardware as a service, and disaster continuity planning. Plus, our Support Desk isn’t miles away on some distant shore. It’s located right here in the Greater Vancouver area. So, you might consider us as your local outsourcers.
To find out more about how Com Pro’s managed services can help support your business, get a free assessment today. Contact us or call 604.574.8623.