Are you in the process of evaluating the difference between hiring an IT professional internally or partnering with a support company to provide IT services? Maybe you already have internal IT support and need to consider bringing on additional help, but aren’t sure if you should hire more staff or partner with an IT company. Having the proper tools is one factor that plays into this decision, regardless of whomever you hire to do the job. Having the right tools can make all the difference; one advantage of working with an IT company is that they come to the table with the tools and management processes necessary to keep your business running.
This is one element that often goes overlooked when considering new or additional IT support. Have you ever received a quote from a potential IT partner and thought, “This is expensive! I could hire a full time employee for this amount”? You may not be wrong, but your potential IT partner offers additional value: knowledge, experience and an expensive “toolbox” to help effectively manage your network.
Hiring someone internally might lend you dedicated onsite support but on top of paying for their salary and other employment expenses, your IT professional is going to need the tools to do their job. IT companies use these tools across multiple clients, which makes them affordable and necessary to get the job done right. They can then offer the benefits of these tools to their clients for nominal cost. This provides you with a cost savings that wouldn’t be possible if you had purchased these tools outright.
For any IT company to be effective, they must have special tools, including but not limited to: remote access, remote monitoring, some form of ticket and project management tracking software, special network scanning tools for audit and security purposes, virus and malware scan and removal tools, and managed anti virus and threat detection software. Each of these tools usually comes with some form of monthly recurring cost that is expensive unless you are using it to support hundreds or thousands of people.
Even if you prefer to have someone employed full time to manage your network needs, an IT partner can still be a good resource for you to have. Not only does this give your IT staff support when things get busy, they will also have access the the full toolbox that your IT partner uses.
If you are considering alternate or additional support options or if you are interested in seeing the cost savings of having the right tools in place, contact eTop Technology today to see what we can offer.
