There are a few things to be considered when you are deciding who should handle your IT. Outsource IT or In-House IT? Companies with less than 500 employees should take a hard look at how this decision impacts them operationally and financially.
How many IT employees are needed?
According to Workforce.com, companies with 500 employees or less should have a ratio of 1:18 IT Staff to Total Employees. Essentially, a healthy IT environment requires 1 IT employee for every 18 total employees. This ratio can be difficult to balance due to volatility within the IT industry. LinkedIn found that IT has the highest turnover rate vs all other major industries at 13%. In addition to the attrition in IT departments, when IT employees take a vacation or sick time, this can throw off the balance of support.
Outsourcing eliminates the need to hire and maintain an IT department. Perform due diligence when prospecting IT companies to ensure they have the current bandwidth to handle your employee count. If you have partnered with a quality IT partner, you should always have the needed support to run efficiently.
What costs are incurred with an IT Department?
If you have 100 employees, you should have a director of IT and 4 IT technicians. According to glassdoor.com the average salary of a Director of IT is $118,000, with an IT technician average of $45,000. This would put your total IT Payroll budget just shy of $300,000 annually. That does not include all Non-Salary expenses such as benefits, overhead incurred for office space etc. There will also be costs incurred for technology tools needed by the IT department to maintain the network.
Outsourced IT pricing is generally based on employee count. If you were to breakdown IT services per 100 employeeswith the salary numbers above, you would be paying $3000 per year for each employee to have IT services and help at their disposal. That works out to just under $250 per month for every employee. Professional IT services with Limetree Labs would cost about 1/3 of that.
Is Outsourcing My IT Good For My Bottom Line?
In conclusion, outsourcing your IT has a very positive effect on your bottom line and operational efficiency. Understandably, when any function of your business is outsourced you have concerns about quality and control. At Limetree Labs we bring the following to the table to help ease those concerns:
- Dedicated Director of IT Our customers do not have the revolving door of IT techs. We take extreme ownership of your IT.
- User Training Protect your business from Cyber Attacks with user training- all part of your monthly service.
- Unlimited Technical Support on managed desktop, laptop, server, software, and networking issues.
- Resolution management with 3rd party vendor issues (phones, printers, etc.)
- Reliable server and data backups, anti-virus, anti-spam, and OS patch and security management.
- We are PROACTIVE with your server and workstation health and performance.
We have even more detail on how the numbers break down here: IT Service Partner vs In-House IT: A Cost Breakdown. If you’d like to outsource your IT, let Limetree handle that facet of your company!
