Maintaining an internal IT department can be a formidable task. Finding and keeping staff of various levels, procuring a ticketing system for support, and managing the direction needed for a company to grow are all details that need to be considered when maintaining an internal IT presence. Not all companies are able to take on the financial burden of having a full IT presence. Being able to provide your growing company with strategic IT planning is crucial to move your business in the right direction. As a result, managed service provider (MSP) businesses have been steadily growing over the last several decades. So, what are the benefits of outsourcing an internal IT Department?
Access to Subject Matter Experts
IT departments require a wide range of knowledge that is very rarely held by one person. From knowledge of servers and networks to everyday help desk tasks, a well-rounded IT department requires at least a few employees depending on the size of the business. Having a small internal IT department doesn’t always arm a business with all the knowledge they may need to propel their business to the next level. Some companies can only afford to employ a help desk person to be able to get through the day-to-day items. This can often prevent the company from being able to move forward technologically. While help desk employees are typically technologically savvy and tuned in to current trends, their lack of experience propelling a business forward can often lead to stagnation. Managed Service Providers can employ a multitude of experienced IT professionals that many businesses may only need for short periods of time such as network infrastructure architects. MSPs offer the resilience of a well-rounded IT presence. Help desk employees are numerous and vary in both experience and knowledge. IT strategy planning and employees capable of performing more advanced tasks are merely a phone call away.
Benefits of Various Tools without the Expense
As a company grows, IT departments find the need to employ toolsets to help them navigate their day-to-day duties. The first tool adopted by internal IT is help desk software that allows the users of the organization to send in tickets that need to be resolved and tracked. Not all help desk software is created equally and often requires a measure of oversight to ensure the tickets are being elevated and worked in the proper order. Ticketing software allows a help desk to adhere to goals designed to resolve issues efficiently and ensure the overall satisfaction of the workforce. The next tool allows monitoring of device health throughout the organization and often requires multiple pieces of software to be purchased to keep the environment healthy. There are packaged software items that allow for monitoring and remote help technology; however, they are not all reliable. The larger more robust systems that allow for patching and monitoring can be very expensive. If your workforce contains office workers, remote workers, or field workers, an integral part of your technology stack is going to be a remote help desk software that allows your help desk to remotely control a user’s computer to address the issue they are having. Managed Service Providers are well equipped to tackle all facets of monitoring and ticketing without a company having to purchase the software outright for a small to medium-size team. The costs for these tools are spread out across many organizations and often include more features.
Reliability
For companies that have very small IT departments of 1-2 people, any lapse in attendance could mean a loss of productivity for users having difficulty within the organization. Managed Service Providers have more than one or two technicians available to address user needs as they arise. Not all employees have the same work ethics or ability to accomplish an abundance of tasks. Organizations that have employees that can accomplish many tasks and choose to leave often find the need to replace that employee with several employees. Smaller organizations with limited resources also need to be aware of acceptable workloads for their IT staff. There is also an issue of what is known as “tribal knowledge” within internal IT departments where little to no knowledge about the environment is recorded anywhere. Managed Service Providers such as ERGOS pride themselves on documentation of the business environment so that all technicians who need to work in the environment have the information needed to best serve the users. This information should be freely given to the organization in the form of a runbook upon their leaving of any MSP.
IT Strategy, Planning, and Execution
Knowing how to properly scale an IT infrastructure to meet the demands of your growing business is not a task everyone is well suited for. Organizations can consider hiring a Chief Technology Officer to help shape and guide the direction of technology. The CTO has to accomplish their vision of success for the organization and is deeply dependent upon the staff that is available to them. Managed Service Providers like ERGOS have the knowledge and resources to properly guide any business as a strategic IT partner. ERGOS strategic planning begins with your success team, to find out exactly how you envision the growth of your company. From the planning stages, our professional services department ensures the right technology is planned for, quoted, and delivered throughout your organization. Our help desk team then takes over the day-to-day tasks associated with supporting your users in their environment. Contrary to popular belief, a managed services company does not have to take over every aspect of a company’s IT workload. At ERGOS, our mission is to create raving clients through well-established business relationships. Whether you need fully outsourced help desk services or would like a company to take over parts of the IT needs such as CIO/CTO services, we have you covered. Call our offices today to discuss how outsourcing all or a portion of your IT department can benefit your company.