If your business’s IT management and maintenance needs an upgrade, there are probably two options that you’re trying to choose between assembling an in-house IT team or hiring a managed services provider (MSP). Which of these two approaches is better for your business?
Continue reading to learn the major differences between managed IT services and in-house IT.
Cost
In-House IT
The average IT professional makes $80,882. That means that assembling a small team of IT professionals could set you back hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even if you can justify this expense, an in-house IT team doesn’t always provide value for money. There will inevitably be times when you don’t require any IT assistance, leaving in-house teams with free time at your expense.
MSP
With an MSP, you only pay for the IT services you require, and you don’t have to accommodate a team of full-time professionals in your organization.
There are other cost savings. When you work with an MSP, you don’t have to worry about investing in new equipment or paying for additional training, and you don’t have to provide healthcare insurance or other benefits.
Maintenance
In-House IT
In-house IT teams solve IT-related problems quickly. However, unless you hire a night-time team, these professionals are only valuable during business hours. What happens if you experience a cyberattack during the evening? What if your systems go down at the weekend?
MSP
An MSP provides ongoing IT maintenance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in addition to proactive planning and continual monitoring so you can resolve issues like downtime and data loss without having to wait until Monday morning.
Services
In-House IT
No IT team can deliver every single IT service imaginable. One person might have in-depth knowledge of data governance frameworks. Another person might lack knowledge about data governance but excel at data migration. To cover all the bases, you’ll need to expand your IT team, but hiring more staff might break your budget.
MSP
When you work with a managed services provider, you get access to a broad network of IT professionals. MSPs have contacts with industry experts and specialists from across the country, and you’ll benefit from this expertise at no extra cost.
Service Levels
In-House IT
You rarely have legal recourse if in-house employees don’t satisfy your IT requirements. For example, it’s unusual for a C-suite executive to administer disciplinary action to an employee who didn’t meet her uptime targets. If you are unhappy with an employee’s performance, you could hire a new team member, but this process can be expensive and laborious, with the time to fill a position across all industries averaging 42 days.
MSP
You will probably enter a service-level agreement (SLA) with an MSP, which guarantees specific service and quality levels. For example, if an MSP doesn’t keep your website up and online for a predetermined percentage of the time, you can get a refund. Your basic needs are assured and your MSP will only exceed your expectations.
Managed IT services prove more beneficial than in-house IT in almost every scenario. Working with an MSP often works out cheaper, and you benefit from 24-hour maintenance, a broader range of IT solutions, and more legal protection. Consider hiring an MSP to cut costs and improve performance and productivity in your organization.
Axiom provides high-quality, full-service IT at an affordable rate. Contact us today to find out what we can do to take your business’s IT to the next level!