subject: Outsouce Or Inhouse It Support - What's The Best For Your Business? [print this page] At some stage, every business owner will have to consider which is the appropriate IT support service needed.
This can be a very vexing question as decisions are made as to whether an in-house support team will justify the expense, or whether outsourcing to a specialist company will be the most pragmatic option.
It might be as easy as asking yourself four simple questions to get a clearer picture of which way you should go.
Does your existing staff have the skills required to perform all the duties you would expect of an IT consultancy? Even if you do have the skill set within your existing staff, can you reassign their staff to new tasks and what will be the impact on the work those staff can no longer perform?
If your staff does not have the skill, is it possible for them to be trained to a point where they can assume IT responsibility?
Does an IT outsourcing company give you the level of skills which cannot be duplicated in house?
What are the costs associated with the choice.
Once you have the answer to these questions you will have a clearer picture of which way your decision will go. But there are still some unanswered questions.
In the first place you have to consider whether you think your business will be growing over the coming years. There seems little point in trying to maintain an in-house IT support if your business is not going to grow beyond the need for only one or two servers. And outsourcing service can easily cater for small demands in a small business environment, usually at a very competitive price.
If you are planning to grow your business more substantially then the choice becomes a little less clear. In the first place you need to take into account the cost of staff increases that will become necessary with the increasing levels of IT support you will need. You will also have to acquire the services of a senior IT person who can assist in the lead staff selection process and blandly development of the IT department itself.
Even in these circumstances, it could be appropriate to engage the services of a larger IT consultancy firm who can assume all its responsibilities for you. This way the staffing issues and the associated costs with recruitment will be borne by the consultancy company and you will not be left with the human resource issues and staff management problems that emerge from day to day.
In some cases, your company may benefit from a blended operation where you maintain one specialist IT person on staff who can utilise the services of an IT consultancy to provide services as and when they are required. This can be a cost-effective method which maintains control of IT network support but the same time avoids any unnecessary ongoing costs that larger staffing may involve.
by: Zoran Tasevski
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