As your business grows and technology requirements expand with it many small to mid-sized businesses are faced with the choice to promote an existing employee to IT supervisor, hire a full time IT person, or outsource to an IT vendor.
In my personal experience as an IT consultant as well as a proprietor I have found that a common practice is to first promote the most educated individual in the group that possesses either a knack for technology or is un-frightened by it. That individual then becomes known as the “go-to person for computer and technology issues.”
If you are the proprietor or a member of senior management it’s up to you to make the decision on IT. This task itself can prove to be overwhelming especially if information technology (IT) knowledge as an administrator isn’t your background. It becomes a challenge to be sure you are even choosing the right resume or vendor proposal. Ultimately and unintentionally, many proprietors will simply take a guess as to which individual or company they feel has capability to lead the company in the right direction, implement new ideas, and maintain systems to current standards and efficiency.
Choosing your IT staff whether internal or outsourced should not be a hire today, fire tomorrow procedure. When choosing your it want to make sure that you can build your relationship and trust with either your employee or vendor.
The individual “IT Guy” approach
When one person wears too many hats you can’t expect them to know every aspect of information technology nor be up to par on all technologies. You are left with limited resources and accountability your company bears a higher risk
Although not by choice, a single IT person within your company can easily become overwhelmed with your technical requirements. The IT guy on his own is unlikely to have the time or the budget to apply all strategies needed to keep up in this fast paced industry. You company should not be held at a advantage simply because your IT staff has a lack of knowledge. As a best interest approach to the organization many IT guys will simply set their goals using their own knowledge and requirements for those goals. “Here is how this should work” “This is how I know to make it work”
Disadvantages of having only one “IT guy”:
- The learning curve of an employee is normally slow unless time is allocated by the company, training is provided, and is paid for by the company.
- Limited Experience – Many times when new technologies are first sought for and implemented this may be a first time experience he or she has had which will normally lead to future problems or a delayed implementation time. If mistakes or problems occur it becomes your responsibility.
- One man can only handle each job one at a time. If other courses of business come first your IT needs are then put on hold.
- Reporting to management may not occur as often.
The outsourced IT vendor approach
An effective IT company can encompass many fields with individuals with select expertise. It may be your systems integration, your website, or maybe even your marketing. A true success with technology today relies on a collaboration of all efforts. I feel you lose efficiency when you have many different individuals or vendors taking steps in many directions when you could coordinate strategy. An example of this may be:
- Company A managing your website
- Company B managing IT,
- Staff Member C running your marketing campaign
When you coordinate your team you can then answer questions such as:
- Are my goals reasonable?
- Are my goals challenging?
- Is my team pushing for the company or is it simply day to day?
Many vendor choice benefits include:
- Well constructed and up to date on new technologies
- A team of engineers with allocated hours
- Structured reporting
- Know how to avoid problems
- More jobs can be handled at same time
- Contracts with Accountability
- Lower overhead
In my personal opinion for smaller organizations with fewer than 150 employees the one man IT and the one man IT vendor simply cannot compete with an IT vendor that has a team of professionals that are looking out for your best interest and are there to meet or achieve goals as well as obtain results. I think this is the reason for the ever popular change to “Managed IT”
I am interested in hearing what choices some of you have made when it comes to outsourcing. Feel free to leave your comments below.
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