There are a number of pros and cons for both sides of the argument. In fact, it all depends on the size of your organisation, the provider you choose to work with, your needs and how you plan to use IT in the future.
Let’s look at the pros and cons of three common models: internal IT, hybrid IT and outsourced IT.
1. Internal IT
Having all your IT needs serviced internally used to be a common practice for most organisations. It involves a team of IT personnel employed directly by your organisation that take care of all the day-to-day IT support, IT planning, networking and administration tasks.
Pros of internal IT:
- Oftentimes can appear cheaper when comparing direct costs
- Your core IT “IP” is retained inside the organisation
- On-demand access to technicians who can assist you immediately
Cons of internal IT:
- Key-person risk: what happens when IT staff are away sick or on holidays?
- IT environment often influenced by the internal IT person’s area of expertise or prior knowledge. Organisations can quickly become pigeon holed
- Additional staffing costs including retraining, rehiring/recruitment, and leave expenses
- Environment and internal team can become out of date as it is difficult to keep up to date with latest technology
2. Hybrid IT
Hybrid IT is a mixture of both internal and outsourced IT. In this setup, you might have an internal team that looks after your desktops and ad-hoc IT tasks and an outsourced IT provider that looks after system administration and engineering, monitoring and ICT strategy. In larger organiastions, there may be an ICT manager that looks after strategy, holding third parties/the IT provider accountable (managing the relationships) as well as managing the application layer.
Pros of hybrid IT:
- Best of both setups: an optimal balance and mix of skills (system admin, engineering, networking, consulting, etc.)
- Fast response times because you have on-demand people immediately ready to assist
- Backing via a contractual support framework reduces key-person risk and enables more efficient scaling of resources
Cons of hybrid IT:
- From a direct costs standpoint is more expensive than just internal IT
- You still need to manage internal IT people. Think about the costs of payroll, hiring, firing, performance management and more.
3. Outsourced IT
A completely outsourced IT setup is one where you contract a third-party IT provider to handle all your IT requirements: everything from day-to-day IT support, to strategic IT planning, system administration and more. Again for larger organisations, they may retain an IT Manager who delivers ICT strategy and oversight of the application layer.
Pros of outsourced IT:
- Provides an end-to-end IT service delivery platform
- Set and forget solution that is managed contractually: your IT is handled for you and you have clear KPI’s and performance standards to hold your provider to
- You can leverage the expertise and capability of the provider and the new technologies that they will be across
- Resourcing is appropriately managed
Cons of outsourced IT:
- No person onsite to immediately assist with IT - jobs are logged and prioritised via service level agreement
- If IT is “core IP” for the organisation this can sometimes be better kept internally eg. If your organisation builds their own software etc.
What’s the best fit for your organisation?
It really comes down to the size of your organisation.
If you are small with less than 50 employees, a completely outsourced IT setup is often the best option because you do not have the budget to warrant a full-time IT person.
For organisations with between 50 and 600 employees, a hybrid or completely outsourced IT setup is often optimal.
Large organisations with more than 600 employees need an internal IT team. You have the capacity to build out a full team that has the ideal mix of skills to handle all your IT requirements.
There are always exceptions to these rules based on your organisational demands and IT complexity. A cost analysis and strategic IT review can often help determine which setup is the best fit for your organisational needs.
Call us on 1300 566 862 to chat with one of our IT consultants who can help you evaluate your options.
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