IT support is an essential requirement for any business now, irrespective of its size or industry. However, it may be a tough decision for many of the business owners to choose between in-house service team or whether to outsource their IT support process. Based on your unique needs and requirements, both of these options have their advantages and disadvantages. In this guide, we will have a quick overview of IT support in-house vs. outsourcing.

In-house IT support

It is primarily maintaining hired skilled professionals for your internal IT infrastructure management and troubleshooting.

Pros of in-house IT

  • Cost consistency: On maintaining a single or multiple full-time IT support professionals, the salary you pay them remains the same irrespective of the volume of work. However, this can also be a double-edged sword in case of the maintenance needs involved.
  • On-site resource at your disposal: You have the IT support personnel available any time at your firm or on call.
  • They know the business: The support person at professional providers like White IT Support will have a better understanding of your business operations and goals.

Cons

  • High cost: When compared to outsourcing, maintaining an internal IT wing may cost your far higher. The cost increases if you have to retain experienced employees. Based on your technical infrastructure, you may have to deploy four to five extra staff to cover a broader range of expert tasks.
  • Recruitment and retention overhead: Recruiting and maintaining employee on-roll is not an easy task. Moreover, lack of skill-set or improper recruitment may also trouble you on a long run.
  • Sickness or holidays: Ensuring optimum coverage may be tricky on maintaining internal IT team. You may have to arrange for an on-call rotation to deal with sickness or holiday leaves of support team members.

Outsourced IT support

Outsourced IT support is the process of partnering with a third-party IT service vendor to meet your business technical administration needs.

Pros of outsourced IT support

  • More cost-effective: Outsourced support can cost differently based on your specific need and budget. It can be paid monthly or pay per hour based on the tasks involved.
  • Anytime support: Outsourced IT support is not a 9 to 5 job but can receive its benefits 24/7 for whole 365 days. You can also avail the same benefits on weekends, holidays, and even at odd hours of the day. It helps you avoid any possible downtime and gives a better business experience. With certain outsourced IT services, you will have full faith that you can focus on your business while they focus on IT, thanks to their unique approach, like offering concierge IT support. Choose a support level that works for your business and customize it to suit you. Particular companies will do this for you, so don’t miss out.
  • Experienced professionals: The outsourced IT support agencies usually maintain the best army of top-level highly skilled engineers. By availing this service, you get them at your disposal. Professional IT support providers will have staff with suitable qualifications and experience in a whole range of IT administration areas.

Cons

  • Confidentiality and trust: It is a fact that you are putting the most critical aspects of your organisation into a third party's hand. With this, always ensure that you carry out proper due diligence.
  • Off-site: With outsourcing, you may only have an expert technician at your premises at a small percentage of times for maintenance or emergencies. You also may not get them involved full-time on-site for your other allied tasks.

On assessing both these, we can find that outsourced IT services have a slight advantage over establishing in-house IT team when it comes to an SME or start-up business point of view.

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