Technology has expanded so much over the last 10 years that has now become crucial for the day-to-day operations across a variety of businesses and industries. More recently since the pandemic, many businesses have adopted a work from home or hybrid working models, which in turn increases the need for data backups and safety precautions.
There are many reasons why it might be time for a business to consider outsourcing their IT services to an experienced IT support company, whether it’s down to limited resource or even expertise. In this blog, we take a look at the 5 biggest signs it’s time your business outsourced your IT.
In-House IT Department vs Outsourcing – What’s the Difference?
Before we dive in, let’s recap on the key differences between in-house IT and outsourced external IT support.
In-house IT Support
Having in house IT Support often means that there is a dedicated employee within the company that has a good understanding of IT and can offer support and assistance across the business on general technical issues, cyber security, data backups and general IT issues that may arise. This may be in the form of an IT department that works purely in-house, or it may be one person who has a separate role but helps with IT issues as and when they arise. While this can often work fairly well at the start, it may become less efficient in the long term as your business grows.
Outsourced IT services
Outsourced IT support is where you pay an external IT company to be an extension of your team who are on-hand to help with any IT issues that may arise, offer assistance and advice on cyber security, cloud storage and other general IT queries. Outsourcing can be a better option for companies that wish to save money and require niche expertise in a particular technological field or need coverage in the event that something goes wrong. It can allow you to free up internal resources, focusing more time into business operations.
Reasons why you may need to Outsource your IT Support
There are many reasons why it might be beneficial for your business to look at outsourcing your IT department. Using a managed IT services provider can be a great option if you are looking to reduce some of the unnecessary work that has to be done, freeing up resource & time in-house.
Let’s look at some of the main signs it may be time for your business to outsource an IT service provider.
If Your Business is Facing Regular cyber attacks
With phishing scams and other cyber-attacks becoming more advanced online, companies are facing more and more issues. Did you know that 31% of businesses that face cyber-attacks say they were attacked at least once a week? This can cause serious disruptions to your IT operations and put your businesses data at risk, but something as simple as having a Cyber Essentials certified IT support company can assist and advise on the steps to put in place to prevent future attacks on your business.
Find out more about the most common Cyber Security threats for businesses.
Your business is growing and evolving fast
Depending on the size of your company, your IT support may consist of 1-2 members of staff in the team. However, as your business grows this can start to an affect day-to-day running and in turn, stunt business growth. Many companies can find it hard to keep up with the ever-changing complications of technology while running a successful business alongside, if your company is finding this difficult, it might be time to outsource your IT support.
An experienced IT support team will be able to recommend the latest technologies to make your business run more efficiently. A dedicated technician will be on hand to assist and advise should an issue arise.
The cost outweighs the value of the IT department
Modern costs of technology can be extremely expensive, especially if they are not operated correctly and are time consuming. Businesses can often end up with separate systems that don’t integrate making them run slowly and inefficiently.
Outsourcing IT can remove this confusion as they have the knowledge of the programmes that will work well for your business requirements with the expertise to integrate these into your business seamlessly. A managed service provider will not only help you control support costs, while continuing to improve business operations but you’ll also benefit from lower service rates, compared to having a full team of IT support in house requiring potentially a large salary.
Technological issues preventing business growth
Investing in IT services is one of the best things you can do for your business in the long term. Previously, IT was an area in business that could be handled in-house and may have involved simple fixes with the printer but nowadays, with the undeniable prevalence of technology, it affects most of our daily business tasks. In more recent news, 2020’s pandemic saw a surge in online business, with many teams operating from home at least a few days a week, the nature of using an in-house IT team isn’t always feasible.
Why waste hours on end fixing frustrating IT issues when you could be focusing time more wisely on growing the business. Investing in an external IT team provide you with experienced technicians to assist when issues arise, leaving you time to focus on the important business development tasks that was previously hindering growth.
You don’t have the right staff available
Many companies may not have the need to have a full IT department, but instead rely on a dedicated team member to resolve IT issues as and when they arise. However, more often than not this isn’t their area of expertise meaning that the issue can take longer to fix.
Internal staff don’t necessarily have the right experience nor the same exposure to up-to-date trends and technology and can become stuck using inefficient and limiting systems in house. A good IT support company will be able to provide you with assistance, advice and support on the latest software, insights and programmes to keep your business running smoothly and efficiently.
Using external IT services can give you a competitive advantage as it allows you to be more cost efficient and spend less time worrying about which staff member will be able to fix which issue. With an IT support company, all of that is taken care of for you in a timely manner.
Freestyle TS – Trusted IT service provider
Freestyle TS are reliable IT services and support provider, with over 20 years’ experience in cloud services and IT support for local businesses around Surrey & Hampshire & Berkshire area. We cover services such as cyber security, cloud services and on-hand IT support to help protect your company from malicious activity and provide expertise on cloud storage and IT problems you’re experiencing to ensure your business runs smoothly and efficiently.
Contact us today to discover how we can help with your IT support and sign up today to get your first 3-month’s FREE!
