Why should a small or midsize business outsource their IT support?

Growing businesses often reach a critical point when they recognize that they need IT support, but they aren’t sure what to do about it. Many small- or mid-sized businesses have never contracted in-house nor outsourced IT support before, but their expanding needs and staff demand a solution.   

Here are eight key reasons that many small businesses decide to outsource their IT support. Outsourced IT providers are often known as MSPs  – managed service providers. 

1. Access to expertise.

Why does your accounting department have separate positions for payroll, accounts receivable, and accounts payable? Because one person simply cannot do it all and do it well. In the same way, one person simply cannot address all of your diverse IT needs, and do it well. 

If you want fluid, secure, and effective IT operation, you need access to a proficient, highly-qualified team. In order to do so, you can either hire an in-house team of cloud, VoIP, database, network, and cybersecurity experts – or contract out with a company that employees such a team. 

Of course, you could hire a lone, unfortunate IT-person. However, that often costs just as much as an outsourced team, while providing a “jack of all trades, master of none” type of support for your employees and network. You are not setting up such an employee for success, and they should not be blamed when things are never fully resolved. 

2. 24/7 Support. 

Unfortunately, IT problems don’t usually give you advance notice. They also seem to have a tendency to strike at the most inopportune moment – like when you’re wrapping up a proposal from home at 8PM on a Thursday night for a Friday morning meeting. Any comprehensive IT service provider should be able to take care of your most common issues regardless of where you are or when you’re working. 

In the same situation, a salaried “9 to 5” employee may be unavailable, sick, on vacation, or resentful for the late call – something that won’t happen with a team of professionals standing by. 

3. Proactive maintenance and security. 

A dedicated MSP will often know you have a problem before you know it yourself. That’s because they are behind the scenes monitoring your company’s tech vitals. 

Their job is to stay ahead of the curve. When they do their preventative maintenance work well, they: 

• prevent untimely outages and updates, 
• ensure that your key software stays up and running, 
• enable secure access to your work from wherever you are, and 
• monitor for suspicious activity. 

A solid IT support company will do all of this without you needing to submit a single request. 

4. A stable, predictable IT budget.

A strategic IT partner will help you not only determine your current needs, but your projected needs . By creating a custom solution for your business, they can create a single, stable monthly bill that includes all of your IT needs without fluctuation – help desk support, VoIP phone systems, key software, servers, and even hardware all on one invoice. 

By offering hardware-as-a-service (or HaaS), your MSP can roll the pricing of any projected hardware purchases into your monthly bill – essentially leasing and maintaining the hardware you need for your business. They can also provide you with cloud or off-site server space, which means that you don’t need to worry about replacing expensive server components as they age. By consolidating all of these expenses into a single operational line item, you can avoid the hassle of constantly projecting capital expenses and depreciation. 

5. Improved cybersecurity.

How much do you really know about good data security? Can you name anything beyond secure passwords, two-step verification, and maybe… firewalls (whatever those are)? 

Although cybercrime, ransomware, and phishing might still sound like science fiction to you and your employees, they are very real, and very expensive threats faced by businesses every day. A good IT support partner prioritizes the software, employee training, and business processes that you need to make sure that you are not an easy target. 

6. Scalability

Hopefully your business is growing. If it is, then you are probably making decisions about when to add employees and infrastructure to perpetuate that growth. 

By outsourcing your IT needs, you can remove one of those decisions from the pile. A good MSP will remain aware of your business strategy and keep one step ahead of you by recommending software and solutions that can support the type of growth that you are projecting. When you add employees, your support team will take care of integrating them into your network and software systems – leaving you to focus on the job that they were hired to do. 

7. Flexibility 

By their very nature, MSPs are based off-site and are structured to provide remote support for their clients in the vast majority of situations. If some of your employees have joined the exodus away from a traditional five-day work week in the office, they will have the same level of IT support as someone in the physical office. An outsourced IT support partner should be able to equally assist hybrid, work-from-home, or office-based employees without prejudice. 

This not to say that you will never see your IT provider in-person. If you have chosen a local IT team, they will typically make office visits for advanced setup, trouble-shooting, or meetings. 

8. Focus on Core Business 

IT is now an integral part of daily business. Technology can either facilitate your core focus, or detract from it. By outsourcing IT, you remove a distraction – and maybe even a department - from your management team. A good IT partner will make sure that they do their work well – so that you can do yours even better. This translates into more time and resources for your core business. With no on-site IT team, that’s one less team to manage, one less budget to prepare, and even more open desks in the bullpen.