July 14, 2023
There are a few nice perks that come with an in-house IT team if you can maintain one. However, these days that's a pretty big if. According to a recent report, retention is the top challenge IT teams face in 2023, followed by recruiting and workload.
And it’s about to get worse.
That same report revealed that over half of IT professionals say they’re either somewhat likely or extremely likely to leave their post in the next year in search of better compensation and professional development. You could cough up a lot more money, or you could offload the problem entirely.
Outsourced IT
When you outsource your IT, a managed service provider (MSP) will handle all of your IT needs, from cybersecurity to help desk support.
And just in case you’re wondering, a provider won’t have the same problems retaining staff that you do because it’s much easier to invest in retaining staff and providing professional development when world-class IT doesn’t just support your business — it is your business. Every dollar a provider spends hiring and training their IT teams, they get back (and then some) in ROI.
Outsource vs. In-House IT Team
You can blame the pandemic for a big part of this, but the great outsource versus in-house debate wasn’t always so one-sided. Let me break it down, point by point.
Familiarity With Your Business — Winner: In-House IT (by a nose)
There’s no getting around this. An in-house team will be more familiar with your systems and your goals, as well as the rest of your staff. But if you’re constantly struggling to retain talent, that advantage gets smaller and smaller.
Remote and Hybrid Work — Winner: Outsourced IT
It’s been over three years since organizations had to scramble to empower and secure remote work, but it’s still a challenge.
Here are a few key 2023 statistics:
- Less than 1 in 4 organizations say they’re extremely confident in their current remote support and connectivity approaches
- The greatest challenges facing organizations are endpoint security, resolving technical issues quickly using remote connectivity, and enabling work from home
In-house teams don’t have as much visibility into what has worked well at other organizations like theirs. Each time an additional tool has to be evaluated and added, they spend time reinventing the wheel. That takes precious time, and over the last few years, it’s time internal IT teams didn’t have…and many are still struggling to find.
Cybersecurity — Winner: Outsourced IT (by a mile)
It's no accident that cybercrime continues to increase following the pandemic; it’s inherently more challenging to secure remote workplaces and devices. And as IT departments became overwhelmed trying to accommodate remote work, they simply didn’t have time to prioritize critical software patches and upgrades.
Unfortunately, putting off critical updates leaves companies highly vulnerable to malware and ransomware attacks. Furthermore, each successful attack only compounds the risk. Hackers have reinvested their ill-gotten gains in improving their schemes, making their attacks more sophisticated, and therefore, more dangerous.
While in-house teams are still struggling to keep up with cybersecurity needs and don’t often have the specialized skills that are now needed to ward off cyberattacks, a world-class managed IT provider will. They have to — their reputation is on the line. There’s also an easy way to verify that a provider’s experts are very, very good at their job: Ask them if they have achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance, a third-party industry validation that ensures the right policies and procedures are in place and followed.
Cost — Winner: Outsourced IT (believe it or not)
When many people think about outsourcing, they anticipate higher costs. But that math doesn’t work out the same when it comes to managed IT. There are a number of financial benefits to outsourcing, like this one: because national providers like Marco get volume discounts on all kinds of software most organizations use every day, we can pass on the savings to our clients.
Here’s what one survey by CompTIA found:
- 50% of companies who engaged an MSP saved 1-24% in annual IT costs
- 33% saved 25–49%
- 13% reported savings of more than 50%
Your actual savings will depend on many factors, but your provider’s pricing model may work in your favor. For example, at Marco, we price by user, so small to midsize businesses end up getting fully managed IT at a far more affordable price point.
Managed IT or Project-Based IT?
There is, of course, a middle ground between outsourcing fully and scraping by with an in-house team. Managed IT allows you to scale up or down as your needs change, but if you think offloading a project or two could relieve the pressure on your internal team, many MSPs offer something called project-based IT to help with things like cloud migrations, software licensing, network upgrades, and more.
Many MSPs will also provide technology assessments. Some are just simple scans performed remotely and without context; ours is designed to uncover any hidden risks and identify ways your technology could be working much harder for you. When we’re done, you’ll have a five-year technology roadmap with our custom recommendations that align with your business and its goals.
If you’re not ready to outsource but would like the benefit of a world-class provider’s expertise, a thorough technology assessment is a great way to get the best of both worlds. It’s also a way to dip your toe in the water without making a big commitment. Click the link below to learn more.
