What Are The Benefits Of Outsourcing IT Services Versus Hiring Staff?
Are you considering outsourcing your IT needs instead of hiring internal IT staff? Read on to find out the benefits of outsourcing vs. hiring IT staff.
When your IT infrastructure falls apart, your business operation comes to a halt. Your IT systems are a critical part of your business, and keeping things flowing ensures that your employees and customers are happy. There are two primary ways to keep your IT infrastructure and IT services operational.
The first is to have an internal IT team, and the second is to outsource your IT services to a third-party contractor. The third-party IT vendor may provide part of, or all your IT needs. Over the past years, businesses have increasingly turned to IT outsourcing to improve efficiency, scale operations, and reduce costs while enjoying expert IT services.
If you’re considering outsourcing your IT needs, it’s crucial to understand what outsourcing means for your business. What can you expect from an IT service vendor, and what are the benefits for your business? Let’s dive in.
What’s The Main Difference Between Outsourcing IT Services and Hiring IT Staff?
The main difference between the outsourced IT model and hiring an internal IT team is the employee relationship. Working with internal staff means overseeing recruitment, management, and benefits. However, when you hire an IT service company, they manage their employees, and you enjoy the benefits.
Cost Savings
Reducing IT labor costs is one of the major benefits of outsourcing IT services instead of hiring internal IT staff. When you hire an employee, you need to consider their annual wages, benefits, taxes, associated equipment, management, and office costs. What’s more, you need more than one IT professional to satisfy your IT needs. A well-equipped and experienced team is expensive to acquire and maintain. Also, the current shortage of IT experts pushes the cost of hiring up.
Outsourcing is an excellent way to lower hiring costs. When you partner with an IT vendor, you can enjoy all the services provided by IT experts without recruiting, hiring, and managing IT experts. The burden of management, talent recruitment, and tax liability are transferred to the third party. You pay for the services provided over a given period while retaining the capital that you could have dedicated to purchasing furniture, equipment, and software for your IT department.
Outsourcing is especially critical for small to medium-sized businesses that don’t have the funding for a dedicated internal IT team. Partner with an IT service provider and enjoy professional services at a fraction of the cost.
Access To Expertise
Technology and knowledge and two things you need to consider when hiring an IT expert. Let’s say you don’t have the technical know-how to identify good versus bad service. Perhaps, you don’t know which technologies are suitable for your business model and size. How do you know what to invest in and what to avoid?
Hiring a vendor helps you enjoy access to knowledgeable and skilled IT workers without investing in the recruitment or training process. An IT services company provides a team of qualified and trained IT experts. You can hire a vendor to handle:
- Helpdesk Services: A professional helpdesk service responds to your technical calls and helps you resolve technological problems. Think of it as having someone that can help you navigate your computer systems on demand.
- Cybersecurity: Keeping your business protected from cyberattacks such as ransomware attacks is a top priority. An outsourced cybersecurity professional helps you take preemptive measures such as password management, employee IT training, and device protection. Cybersecurity experts also upgrade your systems to prevent attacks and monitor your vulnerability in real-time.
- Network Design: Effective communication is vital for business efficiency. Network design integrates technology into your communication structure and ensures that all devices are well connected. With excellent network design, you can say goodbye to sluggish responses and network failure.
- Website Design: Are you ready to launch or redesign your website? Are you improving your company image? Outsourced web design helps manage your website, logos, and graphics to provide a consistent customer experience across various platforms and devices.
- Software Development and Management: Many businesses use software to manage their IT, management, accounting, sales and marketing, and other business departments. The challenge is seldom finding software but finding the right combination. Your software needs proper integration to ensure data flow across the organization. Your internal IT team may be bogged down by internal operations and financial restrictions, which limit their experimentation with various software. However, an outsourced IT vendor uses their knowledge of various software to advise you on the best combination.
- IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service helps you outsource hardware and servers needed to run your software and store your data. Building in-house IT infrastructure is costly. Outsourcing lowers your IT infrastructure costs and tranfers the burden of infrastructure management to the service provider.
Minimal Supervision
Management consumes significant time and effort. You may not have the time or expenditure to manage an IT department. Hiring an IT vendor is an excellent way to transfer management responsibilities to a third party. You don’t have to oversee hiring, onboarding, follow-ups, or employee engagement.
The outsourced IT company provides quality services, and in return, you pay them for their services. There is no room for poor service delivery. The challenge here is to find a responsible IT company that can provide excellent and reliable IT services with minimal supervision.
Working with an IT vendor also reduces your liability. Remember that an employee is part of your responsibility, and their actions affect your performance and business outlook. It’s great to reduce the number of employees you need to oversee and have a functional company.
Finding The Right IT Service Provider For You
An IT service vendor is a crucial part of your business operations. As such, choosing a reliable provider that solves your IT issues ensures that your IT services are available around the clock. Your selection ultimately boils down to your IT needs and the expertise of the IT company.
At Essential Solutions, we provide outsourced IT services for businesses. When you partner with us, you can focus on your core operations while we handle your computer networks and cybersecurity issues. Contact us for more information about our outsourced IT services.
