August 10, 2021 by Siobhan Climer
This article was originally published in March of 2019.
As technology becomes more complex and deeper expertise is required, businesses are struggling to fill gaps in their IT teams. Consider the alarming shortage of cybersecurity professionals, coupled with the 600% uptick in cybercrime due to COVID-19. According to Venture Beat, “companies are incurring steep costs from data breaches, with breaches costing companies an average of $4.24 million per incident — a nearly 10% increase over 2020”.
These stats put IT leadership in an alarming predicament. First they must attract qualified — often local — individuals, submit offers to suitable candidates, and then go through a newly formed hybrid, or still fully remote, on-boarding process. And, even if they are successful and your candidate starts on time, is it worth it to build an internal team of highly skilled engineers that continue to be strategic with turnover percentages being as high as they are? Not necessarily.
Internal Investment May Decrease Flexibility
Outside of simply finding qualified individuals, it can be difficult to remain agile as organizations invest in full-time IT staff with specific skills. What happens when the market changes next year – or next week? Hiring new team members as new technologies shift into focus isn’t always strategic or effective.
That’s why many businesses partner with a managed services provider. MSPs assemble a top-tier team of engineers and IT specialists – network engineers, system analysts, developers, programmers, security professionals, etc. – and then align these experts to the business and project objectives of clients.
These businesses extend IT teams with the MSP experts to enable specific tech investments, allowing them to remain agile with changing tech developments.
Why Not Build That Team Myself?
Today, you are upgrading your data center hardware. Tomorrow, perhaps, you are migrating to the cloud. Next week you are hardening your security framework, and next month you are deploying collaboration tools for the organization.
Technology teams today are no longer tasked with keeping the lights on and technology running smoothly. They are strategic players in moving the business forward, streamlining processes, investing in new technology and aligning to the organizational objectives.
These tasks call for a much wider and deeper level of technology expertise. To build a team with the various certifications, regulatory knowledge, and experience needed to successfully meet these targets is enormously expensive. So, organizations extend IT teams with the experts at an MSP who have these qualifications, sharing that expertise – and cost – with other businesses.
The Other Risk? Agility
On top of the cost, there is a larger risk factor. When you invest in specific skills for the internal teams, you are investing in a strategic technology decision. Changing direction – remaining agile – becomes more difficult. In the past year alone we saw a rapid deployment of remote-work solutions which were just as quickly replaced by hybrid work-models. In continued times of uncertainty, flexibility is key.
By working with an outside partner, you offload that risk. The MSP is responsible for investing in cloud-certified and security-credentialed experts – not you. You extend IT teams by joining forces with a partner to meet specific business needs, enabling your organization to remain agile and change direction if – and when – needed.
How MSPs Take On That Risk
Managed services providers, on the other hand, operate with that risk at the center of their business model. By retaining the best-of-the-best in the most relevant technologies, MSPs ensure they can provide the right services and solutions to their clients.
By investing in these technologies, MSPs also remain on the cutting edge of developments in those markets. We then share that expertise with our clients.
This way, it isn’t necessary for every company to have their own Microsoft-, Google-, AWS- and IMB-certified cloud experts – they rely on the MSP to have the expertise and instead focus internally on building out the strategy that informs those technology decisions.
Internal IT Can Be More Strategic
The other big benefit of working with an MSP is offloading the “tech support” aspect of the business. Putting out little fires, monitoring and managing the data center or storage solutions, and testing and managing backups can all be offloaded to an MSP team.
Internal IT can then focus on how the technology solutions and tools operate within the business to support organizational directives. It’s more strategic, more effective, and a better use of IT staff that specialize in your business. This is one more reason why businesses extend IT teams with managed services.
An Extension Of Your Team Committed To Your Success
Mindsight is recognized for excellence, relevance, and integrity. Our approach begins and ends with your business goals – driving predictable outcomes with process-driven solutions.
Whether you need cloud solutions, infrastructure technology, contact center or collaboration solutions, or disaster recovery and security frameworks, the experts we have on our team will partner with you to share their expertise and deliver on your goals.
Find out how to build a technology roadmap that leverages a managed services provider and your IT teams to meet business goals with our eBook The Ultimate Guide To Creating Your Technology Roadmap.
Like what you read?
Contact us today to extend IT teams with Mindsight.
About Mindsight
Mindsight, a Chicago IT services provider, is an extension of your team. Our culture is built on transparency and trust, and our team is made up of extraordinary people – the kinds of people you would hire. We have one of the largest expert-level engineering teams delivering the full spectrum of IT services and solutions, from cloud to infrastructure, collaboration to contact center. Our highly-certified engineers and process-oriented excellence have certainly been key to our success. But what really sets us apart is our straightforward and honest approach to every conversation, whether it is for an emerging business or global enterprise. Our customers rely on our thought leadership, responsiveness, and dedication to solving their toughest technology challenges.
Contact us at GoMindsight.com.
About The Author
Siobhan Climer, Science and Technology Writer for Mindsight, writes about technology trends in education, healthcare, and business. She previously taught STEM programs in elementary classrooms and museums, and writes extensively about cybersecurity, disaster recovery, cloud services, backups, data storage, network infrastructure, and the contact center. When she’s not writing tech, she’s writing fantasy, gardening, and exploring the world with her twin two-year old daughters. Find her on twitter @techtalksio.
How Emerging And Midmarket Companies Leverage Managed Services