No business, big or small, can look confidently to the future without comprehensive IT support. Digital technology is simply too important to business operations to leave to chance.
So you absolutely need IT support, but what form should it take? Large businesses usually have an in-house team of IT professionals to support their digital operations, but even here many are turning to outsourced IT support services to fill gaps and provide cover during peak periods.
The resources of smaller businesses, meanwhile, might only stretch to employing a single IT professional, and many have no in-house IT support at all. These businesses should look into outsourced IT support as a matter of urgency.
The good news is that outsourcing your IT support requirement is a highly cost-effective way of protecting and optimising your IT estate. In most cases, it’s considerably cheaper than employing an in-house team.
“Outsourcing your IT support is a highly cost-effective way of protecting and optimising your IT estate”
It’s also highly Scalable and, if you choose the right provider, the level of cover can be tailored to meet your precise requirements. That means you never spend more than you need to.
Here’s why outsourcing IT support is the choice for cost-conscious businesses.
IT professionals are in demand – and expensive
Good IT support professionals are in great demand. In fact, across the board, the UK is suffering from what has been described as a “catastrophic” digital skills shortage.
For those businesses looking to recruit IT professionals, that means options are few and salaries high. The best candidates are often snapped up by larger organisations that can afford to pay the highest wages.
If you can find suitable candidates, a second line IT engineer can command a salary of upwards of £27,000 a year, and a capable IT manager will cost much more than that. Putting together even a small IT support team is a highly expensive undertaking.
“Putting together an in-house IT support team can be a highly expensive undertaking”
The beauty of outsourcing IT support is, first, that you don’t have to pay these salaries. Outsourcing your IT support turns a fixed cost into a variable one. Instead of paying wages, you pay the cost of your contract, which can change depending on need, the size of the company and the exact nature of the services you require. Outsourcing means you only pay for the resources you need, and never for spare capacity “just in case”.
“Outsourcing means you only pay for the resources you need, and never for spare capacity ‘just in case’.”
On top of it all, outsourcing to an experienced provider – like Mooncomputers – means you’ll often get a level of expertise that simply isn’t available in a small in-house team.
Mooncomputers’ expert team boasts decades of accumulated experience and real expertise across the board, from networks to Cybersecurity.
A range of savings
So IT helpdesk outsourcing means you save on salaries, but the cost cutting doesn’t end there. When you’re not employing people in-house, you open up a range of further savings.
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Recruitment:
The costs of creating an in-house IT team start long before you’ve paid a single monthly salary. Recruitment costs, according to Glassdoor, are currently running to around £3,000 per new worker in the UK. That’s just an average, and the cost of recruiting a seasoned IT professional is likely to be considerably higher.
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Infrastructure and equipment:
Outsource IT support and you don’t pay for computers, tablets and other equipment an in-house team might require. For that matter, you don’t pay for their office chairs, deskspace and free tea and coffee either.
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Training and development:
When you employ an in-house team, it’s up to you to make sure it stays up to date with the latest developments in the sector. Given that IT is a highly dynamic and ever changing discipline, that means training and development costs can be considerable. By contrast, when you hire third party expertise, the responsibility for staying on top of the latest advances and security alerts – and the associated expense – passes to your provider.
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Sick and holiday pay:
As will all employees, you’ll have to pay sick and holiday pay to in-house IT professionals, and make pension contributions. With outsourced support, you don’t have to do any of it. And that’s another benefit of outsourced IT support services. When an in-house member of staff is sick or goes on holiday, you might have to pay to cover that absence. When you partner with a managed IT support provider like Mooncomputers, those costs transfer to us. It’s our responsibility to make sure we have the staffing in place to cover your needs, regardless of whether it’s the height of the summer holidays or peak winter flu season.
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With IT helpdesk outsourcing, the benefits always outweigh the costs
All in all, there are huge cost benefits of outsourcing IT support compared to employing an in-house team – and that’s if you can even find suitable candidates for in-house roles.
But to be clear, the biggest cost benefit is simply having dedicated, professional IT support that’s always available.
Outsourced IT support services can help you secure your systems against the often catastrophic costs of a security breach. When servers or Connectivity go down, third party teams can act quickly to get them up and running again. A good provider can help you reap the productivity rewards that come from always having fully updated, fully optimised networks, applications and devices.
Managed IT support can be the answer to your small businesses’ technology headache, because it can act as the cost-effective equivalent of an in-house IT team. It can undertake the heavy lifting of updating and patching your solutions and hardware, saving you huge chunks of time and also giving you real peace of mind.
“Managed IT support will undertake the heavy lifting saving you huge chunks of time and also giving you real peace of mind.”
Mooncomputers is a dedicated outsourced IT support service with decades of accumulated expertise and a thorough understanding of the needs of smaller businesses. We know you need a service that covers you against a range of IT issues but won’t break the bank, and that’s what we always aim to provide.
As a business, you’re reaching for the stars: Mooncomputers can help you get there.
