IT Services – In-house, Co-managed or Outsourced – What’s right for your business?

Invisible Loss of Control of In-House IT

The Office Presence Illusion

Some senior executives are concerned that if they can’t see their IT team sitting at their desk, they aren’t in control of their technology. As a business grows and expands, it can sometimes feel natural to want to hire internally to maintain that perceived control.

Having physical proximity to a team does not always equal more control and visibility. An internal IT person is often unable to provide clarity on the data or is so overstretched that they’re unable to provide a forward-thinking digital strategy.

A Managed Service Provider with access to a centralised IT service management tool, including remote monitoring and ticketing, will be able to provide accurate data analysis of your infrastructure and any persistent issues.

The Ticket Black Hole

With an overstretched IT team, user queries pile up, the internal person gets bogged down in day-to-day firefighting (resetting passwords, fixing connections). High-level strategic projects or cyber security monitoring get pushed to the back burner.

The Recruitment Headache

An expanding mid-size business needs a mix of IT skills, such as a Cyber Security Analyst, a Cloud Architect, and an Infrastructure Director. Most mid-size businesses are unable to justify the cost of hiring all three, which leaves them compromised on the skills they require. Trying to hire an internal generalist to cover all those positions is virtually impossible!

Single Point of Failure

When a growing business relies on a single person or a small, stretched team to deliver a business-critical department they are leaving their business at risk of having a single point of failure.

What happens when that single internal person or the senior person within a team goes on holiday, falls ill, or leaves the company? They take all the network knowledge with them. That represents is a true loss of control.

How Outsourcing Delivers Real Control

An experienced Managed Service Provider with an expert team of helpdesk and field engineers will provide your business with more control than an internal team.

With access to a centralised IT service management tool, including remote monitoring and cybersecurity and ticketing will be able to provide accurate data analysis of your infrastructure and proactively raise and fix any issues.

The Safety Net: What Happens If Things Go Wrong?

If your business is hit with a critical incident such as a failure of infrastructure or a cyber security attack, having a Managed Service Provider that you can rely on to provide expert, prompt support is invaluable.

• Remote Power + On-Site Presence: A rapid remote helpdesk keeps the business moving day-to-day, a true partner backs this up with field engineers who can deploy to site quickly for critical projects or emergencies.
  • Technical Drive’s Security Operations Centre has a rapid response team that will drop everything to prioritise a cyber security breach.
• Eliminating Supply Chain Friction: If a business is facing a hardware or a system failure, waiting to procure new equipment can lead to significant downtime, with reduction in productivity and revenue.
  • Technical Drive provide a free 7-day loan equipment, so your operations is never left stranded while new systems are being organised.

Selecting the Best IT Provider

Obviously, a business will only get the benefit of outsourcing if they select the best Managed Service Provider for their business. See our recent guide for a full list of things to ask a prospective provider for, but some common things to look out for are below.

• IT Experts vs Gatekeepers: When a member of your team has an issue, you want to be able to get through to someone quickly and have the problem fixed immediately. A modern helpdesk shouldn't just log tickets and tell people to wait. It should be staffed by experts who aim to resolve issues on the first call.
  • Technical Drive have a ‘First Call Resolution’ policy which means you don’t get put on hold, wait for a call back whilst your issue is escalated.
  • Average call wait times: Technical Drive answer all calls in under 30 seconds.
  • Response times: Technical Drive’s SLAs for resolution is 3.48 hours.
• The Proof of Care: A business should look at as many proof points as they can. Does the MSP publish real case studies. Do they monitor client feedback on an ongoing and annual basis. Do they have a positive score on Google Reviews.
  • Technical Drive request feedback after every helpdesk ticket and project via SimpleSat – with a positive score of 99.4%.
  • Technical Drive hold an annual telephone survey is held with every client to gather their feedback and benchmark performance.
  • Technical Drive has 186 Google Reviews with an average rating of 4.8.

Summary

True control isn't about being able to walk over to someone's desk; it is about knowing that when an employee has an issue, it’s resolved in minutes, your data is secure, and your infrastructure is ready to scale. Outsourcing IT provides a fully accountable, multi-skilled department for a predictable monthly cost, which eliminates the high salary demands and recruitment risks of going it alone.

Ready to see how your current IT setup stacks up? Book a free, no-obligation IT infrastructure audit or speak with one of our consultants today.'