If you own or manage a small to medium sized business, you may be wondering whether you should outsource your IT consulting department or keep an in-house staff. That’s a common question – and an important one. It is essential that businesses optimize their operations and implement the right technologies to drive their business objectives.
Outsourcing your technology to a professional IT consulting firm can have several advantages, one of which is saved financial resources. Let’s take a look at how hiring an IT consultant can actually save your company money.
1. Improved Productivity and Efficiency:
You can spend a lot of time worrying about computer viruses, a downed server, software upgrades, system conflicts or other technological issues. In fact, most medium sized businesses spend more than half (56 percent) of their time dealing with troubleshooting and server management, according to a survey by Rackspace. Time spent trying to solve these issues is time taken away from focusing on your business’s core competencies. We all know wasted time equals wasted money.
When you have a dedicated team of IT professionals that can manage all this for you, you’ll see increased productivity and decreased overall costs (as well as decreased downtime). When they don’t have to of worry about technology issues, your employees will have the freedom to focus on what they do best. Most IT consulting firms offer 24-hour help desk services, so if a technological issue comes up, you can call your IT consultant to diagnose and fix the problem.
2. Reduced Technology Costs:
IT consultants are experts at what they do – they know how to choose, install, fix and manage the latest technologies and they can do so quickly and efficiently. Information technology is a highly specialized field – don’t expect your employees to know the ins and outs of IT (because they don’t).
Instead of wasting money purchasing, maintaining and updating the technologies required to run your business, you can use the extensive knowledge and resources available through your IT consultant. A good IT consultant can help you streamline your infrastructure so that your technology can run efficiently and accommodate your growing business.
3. Reduced Staffing Costs:
Hiring full time, in-house IT employees can be extremely expensive. In addition to funding high-level salaries, you’ll need to cover things like benefit costs, worker’s comp, office supplies and furniture, etc. Those costs add up, and you many also need to deal with a new employee learning curve. Add to those expenses the time required to hire and train a new staff member, and it’s easy to see how an in-house IT expert can become a hefty commitment.
By hiring an IT consultant, you won’t have to worry about making sure your staff is keeping up to date with the latest and greatest technology. IT consultants are so immersed in the information technology world and have access to so many industry resources – you can count on them to be the specialists.
Successful businesses are always looking for ways to work smarter, operate more efficiently and ultimately increase profits. Hiring an IT consulting firm to manage your technology needs can not only save you money, it can give you something priceless – peace of mind.
About The Author
Great blog Frances! We spent way too much time and money trying to figure this stuff out ourselves before my CTO finally forced me to hire a tech consultant. She was definitely worth her weight in gold.