Small businesses and midsized businesses are now leveraging a wide array of technology to cut costs, boost productivity, and bring more value to the marketplace. As businesses grow more dependent on technology, the demand for reliable IT support grows along with it.
But the work required to ensure your infrastructure stays running 24-hours a day, 365-days a year involves a substantial investment of time and effort. Hiring and retaining qualified IT support personnel to manage these complex systems is a tremendous challenge, with hidden costs and obstacles at every stage of the process.
Let’s take look at the burdens of hiring and managing onsite IT support, then explore how the Managed IT Service Model can helps alleviate these obstacles with via remote network management and IT help desk support.
There’s an assumption that having your IT team right down the hall is always best. While there are benefits to being able to interface quickly with a technology team, onsite support isn’t always the ideal choice. Here are a few of the key reasons why onsite support can leave you unprepared.
The skills gap in IT is expanding making it difficult for organizations to find and hire proficient tech workers. While demand continues to grow exponentially, the pool of suitable candidates does not. As the gap widens, more companies will struggle to keep up with the latest technologies, trends, and threats.
The cost of staffing an in-house IT support crew is skyrocketing. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a tech professional working in the Tampa area is almost $80,000 in 2022.
In addition to paying high salaries and providing traditional benefits like paid time off (PTO) and health insurance, tech staff may also expect businesses to provide perks like childcare assistance, health club memberships, paid family leave, fertility assistance, bereavement leave, and tuition reimbursement, professional training, and more.
Those costs are a significant burden for a growing business, especially as you scale your IT team to cover the many skillsets you’ll need to support and secure a modern network.
The shortage of qualified IT workers (and the high paychecks they command) makes it difficult to retain said talent. And as you’d expect, small and midsized businesses are the hardest hit.
If an important member of your small IT team says your competitor has offered a significant salary increase along with better opportunities for career advancement, does your business have the necessary funds to give them a competitive raise? What if you need access to a new program like cloud computing, cybersecurity, how will you build that into your existing budget?
When an IT staff person does leave—because eventually they will—they will take with them all the knowledge about your network and business they’ve gained over the years, forcing you to start from scratch and retrain your new employee.
Thankfully, there’s an alternative to hiring in-house. The flat-rate support of an MSP gives you many of the benefits of hiring IT support technicians with none of the downsides associated with an in-house hire.
Our experience has taught us that onsite IT teams tend to become siloed and develop a short-sighted view of the infrastructure they maintain. Without the agency or resources they need to thrive, an onsite support teams often ends up in a reactive mode rather than proactively managing your network.
Reactive IT support forces your organization to play a never-ending game of cat-and-mouse. Being behind the curve and playing catch-up leads to a patchwork of “quick-fix” solutions that are not integrated or coordinated, which introduces new vulnerabilities.
This service model puts businesses at a significant disadvantage against their competition and against cybercriminals.
Proactive IT support, on the other hand, helps companies avoid these problems by fixing small issues before they materialize as big issues. In partnering with a reputable Managed IT service provider to provide proactive IT help desk support and network management, you’ll have instant access to a cadre of tech experts with vast experience monitoring and repairing issues remotely.
Businesses that manage their IT with a proactive approach increase uptime, improve inefficient workflows, and offer a better experience to their clients.
Every employee on your IT staff possesses an intangible understanding and know-how regarding your organization's tech infrastructure. This expertise, often referred to as institutional knowledge, evaporates when there’s employee turnover, extended vacation or leave.
When your business a key IT staff person—even temporarily—it will inevitably lead to lackluster network support, reduced workforce productivity, and lapses in communication. Ask yourself:
What happens if my business becomes the victim to a sophisticated cyberattack while a key member of my IT staff is unavailable to respond? Do I have someone the redundant systems in place to manage that disaster and someone to help me manage that transition?
Working with an MSP to ensure that your network is constantly watched around the clock can help to fortify your defenses.
A good provider will help your organization implement security measures to reduce your risk of being targeted by cybercriminals while also keeping an eye on your network day and night, sniffing out threats and responding quickly no matter the time of day.
Another advantage of remote IT help desk support and network management is that it's invisible to your staff.
Onsite IT support can be obtrusive and too frequently interrupt other departments trying to do their job. Since remote IT support is done over the internet, it's out of your way, affording a level of convenience and flexibility that’s hard for wholly onsite teams to match.
With a remote IT team, your workforce won’t even know there’s an MSP at the other end who keeps the infrastructure running smoothly. As more businesses discover that they can get the same or better quality of IT support without hiring onsite staff, this support model is growing in popularity.
But there is no one-size-fits-all approach in IT, and for certain kinds of organizations, the need for onsite tech specialists is paramount hence CoManaged IT support partnerships are also trending upward.
Want the Best of Both Worlds? Explore Co-managed IT Services
A co-managed IT support arrangement means the organization works with a managed service provider to supplement its in-house IT team.
This can be a great solution for businesses who don’t have the internal resources to support a fully staffed IT department, or for businesses that want to offload some of the day-to-day management of their IT infrastructure to a trusted partner.
If you’re considering co-managed IT support for your business, there are a few things to keep in mind:
Remote Technology Support and IT Help Desk in Tampa
As the demand for qualified IT professionals continues to increase, many businesses will find it difficult to keep pace. While some will see this as an insurmountable challenge, others are taking advantage of savvy IT partnership solutions to create new opportunities for themselves.
If your business is looking to maximize the uptime and availability of its technology, the LNS Solutions team is here to help. For 20 years, we’ve been a trusted IT support partner to business in Tampa. Contact our friendly, responsive team any time at (813) 393-1626 or info@lnssolutions.com.
We look forward to speaking with you!