Outsourcing IT services are becoming more and more popular for both SMBs and big companies. Every business heavily relies on IT to maximize operational efficiency. Experts predict that overall IT spending by SMBs will increase tenfold in the coming years. But these businesses need to carefully understand every bit involved with outsourcing IT, to avoid any costly mistakes. For more details about outsourcing IT services, check EcDev Studio. This deep jobs platform will help you hire top remote engineers for your company.
The question still remains whether SMBs should focus on an in-house IT department, or to outsource their IT needs to third-party companies.
In this article, we are going to focus on the latter option, and we are going to tell you everything you need to know about outsourcing IT.
Outsourcing IT Services
Outsourcing IT services are a viable way to take care of all of your IT needs. As a business owner, outsourcing IT is both efficient and cost-effective for your business. To understand more about outsourcing IT, you have to understand the type of IT services that can be outsourced.
Img source: cgi.com
• Break/Fix
The most basic form of IT that businesses can outsource is the break/fix model. Break/Fix IT solutions are exactly what they sound; if something breaks, the IT service sends a technician to look into it. Break/Fix IT services are best suited for businesses that rarely use IT.
• Managed Service Providers
Managed Service Providers (MSP for short) bill you monthly, or annually, and they offer a wide range of services. MSPs are cost-effective alternatives to internal IT departments that provide remote management of your entire IT needs. MSPs can provide all the support a business needs, from scaling your business by leveraging IT, to upgrading your own IT infrastructure, to providing security and overseeing operations of systems.
According to Sysoft, there is a special form of MSP that specializes solely on security, and they are called MSSP (Managed Security Service Providers).
Now that we’ve covered the types of outsourcing IT services out there, let’s understand the things you need to know before making the right decision.
1. Data Security
Img source: louisianalawblog.com
The biggest concern with outsourcing IT is the data security question. If you are a business owner, and you’ve employed an MSP, the first thing you should ask is how well equipped the MSP is to prevent security breaches. Up to 70% of SMBs experience a data breach due to cyber attacks, and 35% of them go out of business as soon as that happens.
2. Service Expectations
MSPs are employed by SMBs; it’s as simple as that. But an MSP doesn’t work for one client, quite the contrary they can eighter have too many clients or too little. So as an SMB, it should be one of your top priorities to express legitimate concerns if SMBs make promises they fail to keep. As a business owner who needs IT services, the MSP in question must dedicate fully towards your needs, and not towards a higher paying client.
3. Pricing
Pricing and billing methods are another thing that business owners should take a look into before hiring an MSP to take care of their IT needs. Prices vary with different MSPs, and they can be tiered, package-based, per device, or per user. In the ideal scenario, you will agree on a model that will cover all the services you require, all at a fixed monthly rate.
