A key consideration among companies on how to go about their digital transformation and cybersecurity projects is how the transition will be done. There are still those who prefer to keep everything inside the house and do things on their own, but there’s a growing trend among companies to outsource their requirements for IT services through an IT Managed Services Provider (MSP).
If it’s the first time you’ve heard about MSP, it’s basically hiring someone outside your company to do almost everything you need to do for your IT service management. You can learn more about MSP by browsing various resources online. There are quite a number of differences when you decide to go MSP compared to doing things your way in-house. Take a look at some of these differences between in-house and managed IT services.
Cost Efficiency
The first thing that you can compare between in-house IT and MSP is the overall costs. If you go for managed IT services, you could save a lot of money and resources.
With in-house IT services, you’ll have to hire and keep your own people. You might even need several teams if your business is big enough. You’ll need to hire specialists for most major areas of IT operations and maintenance. Chances are, you’ll also most likely need a full complement of IT, support staff, for when additional help is needed.
You don’t have to do things on your own or have any of those if you get an MSP. You can potentially save a lot of money because then, you don’t need to hire and employ a lot of IT staff. You won’t have to spend a lot on salaries, bonuses, and benefits which you pay for when you have in-house IT staff, not to mention other costs associated with training said staff.
MSPs are also more efficient at what they do compared to in-house. They have highly advanced systems and streamlined work processes. Since they do IT work on a larger scale, they are able to leverage their scale and efficiency. If you work out the math, you’ll find out they are able to do more at a lesser cost; so much lesser than what you would have spent on an in-house group.
Competence And Capability
You can fairly say that the competence and capabilities of IT specialists and staff are generally similar everywhere. It doesn’t matter, you might think, whether they’re in-house or outsourced. However, you should keep in mind that while IT is the core competence of an MSP, it’s not necessarily the case for your company’s in-house staff.
In much the same way that it probably took your company years or even decades to have the core competence that your in-house staff has today, MSPs have likewise spent a lot of time before they got to where they are today. You can avail of their institutional expertise if you hire their services. Most of them have already spent a lot of money investing in the competence and capabilities of their people as well as on their infrastructure and technology.
If you were to keep your in-house team, you’ll have to spend more money just to make sure they’re always up-to-date with all the latest technologies, software version updates, trends, and practices. From time to time, you’ll have to spend resources on upkeep while they’re on idle time in training and not directly contributing to your company’s productivity.
If you hire a managed IT services company, they’ll be the one to spend for the competencies and capabilities of their workers – to be used to service your requirements. And the best MSPs are also updated on the latest in cybersecurity, so you get a fully-trained team right away.
‘Round The Clock’ Service
When you outsource to an MSP, you can ask them to arrange a ‘round-the-clock’ support service for your company. Most MSPs would gladly offer this option just to snatch a key account from their competitors, but some would say it’s an add-on that you’ll have to pay for on top of the basic charges.
The point is that you can ask someone else to give you 24/7 technical support for your requirements. Were you to do this with your own in-house staff, you’ll most likely have to hire and deploy several teams to go on shifting schedules. In all likelihood, you’ll have to incur additional costs on overtime pay, nightshift premiums, graveyard shift pay rates, and hazard pay.
Make Them Bid For Your Account
You can ask several MSPs to give you quotes for their scope of services and service fees and hint that you’re at a number of interested providers. From the submitted quotes, you can choose the one which offers you the best support service at the most affordable rates. You can ask them for the list of companies they’ve been servicing. This would give you some idea about the amount of marketplace trust they’ve earned so far for the work they do.
