When your organization is looking for Philadelphia IT support that provides hands-on service, you have 2 options: either hire an in-house IT technician or work with a local outsourced IT company.
You already know that having an in-house tech is a very costly option, but you also know that there can be pros and cons to working with outsourcers. This list of the top pros and cons should help you determine whether outsourcing or hiring in-house is better for you.
The Pros
A good local outsourced IT support firm or Managed Services Provider (MSP) can deliver:
- Better Planning Capabilities
Unless you have the financial resources to hire a full-time team of dedicated IT technicians along with a CIO or CTO, your acting in-house tech support is going to be pressed for time. All the time. As you no doubt know, taking care of business technology feels like you are constantly putting out fires. An environment like that makes it difficult to set aside hours for regular strategic planning or executing on a plan.
As Mike Tyson put it, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Being the sole IT person for a successful small to midsized business can feel a lot like getting punched in the mouth.
By choosing a local Philadelphia IT support provider that offers virtual CIO (vCIO) or Business Technology Review (BTR) services, you can ensure that your strategic IT plans stay right on target, no matter what happens.
- Better Uptime Reliability
If you hire one in-house tech, they will probably have standard working hours. This is important to provide fast, efficient tech troubleshooting that helps keep business humming along day to day, but it is less useful if you want to apply timely patches and updates. Instead, to maintain effective cybersecurity, your in-house tech will have to apply regular patches and updates during business hours. This could result in as little as 15 minutes or up to a few hours of downtime.
Microsoft, Adobe, and other large tech providers release new, important patches on Tuesdays in a practice known as “Patch Tuesday.” Getting those patches installed on time is important, so you do not fall prey to “Exploit Wednesday” the next day. This alone is a good reason to work with an outsourced IT provider here in Philadelphia, one that will apply those patches for you after hours on Tuesdays.
- Better Cost Effectiveness
This pro does not really take explanation. Everyone knows that outsourcing is usually more cost effective than hiring full time – but you may not know that a good local IT provider can get you big discounts on your office technology.
It’s true. Due to long-term relationships with vendors, as well as the ability to buy at scale, an established MSP is likely to help you save big on your tech purchases, which means they can reduce both your OpEx and your CapEx.
The Cons
For each of these, note that we have listed then as “potential” issues because you can always avoid these cons by carefully choosing your provider.
- Potential Limits to Specialized Knowledge
If you work in an industry with a large amount of specialized knowledge, or if you have strict compliance regulations, your in-house tech has a clear motive to internalize your industry norms and maintain compliance. But does your outsourcer? Not always.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to avoid issues and ensure that you work with industry experts who meet your compliance needs. Choose a Philadelphia IT support company that can prove their experience in your industry with client references and ensure that they are up to date with security certifications including SOC 2 (Type 1 and Type 2), HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and ISO 27001.
- Potential Limits to Service Offerings
In general, you can think of MSPs as offering tiered service levels. For the most basic level, a managed IT service provider will apply patches and updates, monitor your systems, and send you regular reports. At the highest levels, providers can offer a dizzying array of services including business continuity / disaster recovery, mobile device security, setting up user permissions and configuring devices for new employees, and working directly with your tech vendors —including your ERP vendor— to resolve issues (plus a lot more).
Before you sign up with an IT company, take the time to closely examine your potential provider’s Service Level Agreement (SLA). This spells out, in detail, precisely what services they will deliver, as well as turnaround times and other important details. If you choose wisely, you can get many more included services from the multitude of experts at an outsourced company than you could from a single in-house tech.
- Potential Limits to Responsiveness
You should never consider your in-house tech to be on call 24/7, but many companies often do. A small amount of Internet digging will quickly uncover many stories in which in-house technicians worked days on end without breaks to correct issues, or who rolled out of their beds at 2:00 AM to fix a troublesome on-site issue. These are unreasonable expectations, but many in-house techs will meet them just to keep their jobs.
If you work with an IT support company that clocks out at 5:00 PM on the dot, you will not have the after-hours or weekend support that you may get from an in-house tech, and the provider’s call queue on Monday may be painfully slow as you wait in line behind all the other businesses that had issues over the weekend.
However, if your SLA specifies after-hours and weekend benefits as part of your agreement, you can be sure you will always have fast, responsive service on demand.
Still Not Sure Whether to Choose a Philadelphia IT Support Provider or an In-House Tech? Consider This.
When making this decision, many business leaders consider it an either / or choice.
But you can have both.
If your budget allows, you can hire both an in-house expert and an outsourced IT team. This gets you the knowledgeable expert that you want down the hall, as well as after-hours help, strategic planning and execution, and the reliable uptime modern businesses require.
However, if you can only afford one of these options, the IT services company is likely to be the most cost-effective solution.
Start your search for the perfect IT support provider by learning more about SWK Technologies. We provide a wide range of expert services across a variety of industries, we have a long history of meeting strict compliance mandates, and we have been named a top managed services provider by the biggest analysts in the field.
Best of all, we are located right here in Philadelphia – and we would be happy to make your acquaintance anytime.