Our “White Paper” series is all about the business of IT. Topics like password security, IT management, and technology purchases are all covered in our informative series aimed to help small businesses achieve their technology goals.
The IT needs of a small business can be complex, and it can be difficult (both practically and financially) for small businesses to internally house an IT department that can meet all of them. IT companies can provide your business with a team of experts specifically matched to the needs of your business. A good IT firm will address your business’s challenges with individual solutions based on decades of experience – not a one-size-fits-all plan.
Components of IT Outsourcing
In this “Outsourcing series”, we explore the four main benefits of outsourcing IT services to a third party. This includes staffing, talent management, available servicesand operational management. Using an outside firm gives your business access to a wide range of skills, experts, and services that would otherwise be expensive to acquire.
How expensive? Housing a full IT department internally could cost your business anywhere from $695,000 to nearly $1 million annually – and that’s just staff costs. It does not account for software licensing and developing costs that would be included in a contract with an outside firm.
Costs For In-House Staff
An experienced, well-qualified Chief Information Officer (also called Chief Technology Officer or IT Director) establishes and directs the strategic and long-term goals, policies and procedures for Information Technology within an organization. This position determines an organization’s long-term system needs, as well as hardware, software and system acquisitions needed to accomplish the organization’s business objectives. Their annual pay can be anywhere from $175,000 to $300,000. An outside IT firm can provide that same strategic guidance based on years of experience and trends they seeing across clients.
Your firm would also need to have an IT Project Manager and a host of mid-level staffers including a Network Engineer, a Network Administrator, a System Analyst, a Software Engineer, a Database Administrator, and a Web Developer. All of whom could be taking home anywhere between $55,000 and $125,000 per year, each.
Specialized Staff
If you’re thinking that this list is starting to sound as long as your current staff list, you’re probably right. But those professionals all manage extremely crucial aspects of IT for every business, including yours. They design, install and maintain networks as well organize and implement your computer systems. They solve organizational information problems, design programs, and maintain software. Those are all things your business needs.
That’s where turning to an outside firm can become extremely helpful. You’d have access to all of those types of IT professionals. As a small business it’s likely you wouldn’t need all of those IT professionals at the same time, but you’ll need all of them at some time. When you use an outsourced IT firm that’s exactly what you get. Firms can adjust the team serving your company as your needs change and you never have to let go of an employee or frantically search to hire a new one.
And, as we’ll discuss in Part Three of this IT Outsourcing Series, the caliber of IT professionals you’ll find at an outside IT firm, where they get to face new challenges in new industries every day, is second to none.