Is your IT team stressed, burned out, and running at capacity? You're not alone. This is a common pain point across many industries, and it not only impacts your employees' wellbeing, but also the efficiency and profitability of your business. The question is, how do you resolve it?
There are two main options: hiring additional IT staff or outsourcing IT support to a co-managed provider. Which of these is most cost effective for your business? Read on to find out.
The problem with strained IT teams
In addition to experiencing low morale, habitually strained IT teams may feel that their workload is so heavy they can't afford to take annual leave or get sick, resulting in debilitating burnout down the line. If your employees are regularly working nights or weekends to make deadlines, you're also probably forking out significant overtime wages to overworked staff who are not performing at their best.
When your IT team is working hard to simply stay on top of daily operational issues, they most likely aren't completing preventative maintenance, security measures or goal-driven technology projects on-time — or at all. This could cost your business big in the long-run when expensive equipment needs replacing, sensitive data is exposed in a cybersecurity breach, or delayed projects result in lost business.
Is hiring new staff the right solution?
At this point, you're probably revisiting your budget to see if you can make additional IT hires to fill in the gaps. However, when you analyze the costs, the results might shock you.
Let's assume that you already have a core internal IT staff, but need to fill at least a few key roles to maintain your business's technology requirements. Here are some of the salary requests you'll be fielding at interviews:
- Technical Support: $30,000-50,000 annually
- On-site Maintenance: $40,000-60,000 annually
- Network Administrator: $55,000-80,000 annually
- Network Engineer: $75,000-120,000 annually
- CIO/Director of Technology: $100,000-150,000+ annually
All things considered, employing a fully functioning IT team — without specialized skill sets in advanced cybersecurity, data protection or compliance management — could cost an average of $300,000-400,000 per year.
Quality IT hires not only command high salaries and significant training, if they don't work out, your company will find itself in an even more precarious position than before. In contrast, the cost benefits of an external IT provider are significant.
How could co-managed IT save you money?
At this point, you might be asking, "What is co-managed IT?" If you haven't come across this term yet, co-managed IT allows you to outsource IT support without having to hire — or fire — any staff.
A co-managed IT provider works with your internal team to decrease their workload and get projects off the ground. By supplying you with the manpower, resources, and expertise needed to improve your business technology, they can also help your company run faster, stronger and better than the competition.
Rather than demanding an annual salary, co-managed IT partners usually charge a fixed monthly rate, with flexible services that can be scaled up or down according to your changing requirements. This means you can supplement your IT staff in any way that you need, while leveraging the latest technology, programs, and expertise of a dedicated IT provider — without the additional costs of training, equipment, annual leave, sick pay, tax, or overtime.
Talk to Continuous Networks about co-managed IT
Continuous Networks has been serving the New York and New Jersey area for over two decades, making us compliance experts in both state and federal laws and regulations. Ongoing, flexible co-managed IT partnerships are our specialty and we work primarily with clients on a co-managed basis, developing long-term relationships and becoming a trusted part of our clients' IT strategies.
If you think a co-managed IT solution could be exactly what your business needs to grow and improve its technology, we've recently launched a new guide — The CEO and IT Manager's Guide To Co-managed IT — which goes into a whole lot more detail about this service. Click here to download it for FREE.
Prefer to chat instead? You can schedule a Continuous THREAT CHECK with our team to find out how we could improve your technology.
