Determining Your IT Needs

You work very hard to differentiate your company from your competitors. Therefore, it only makes sense that your IT needs would be unique as well. Likewise, the amount of IT personnel required to effectively manage your IT needs has many variables;

-How much does your company rely on technology?

-How many users do you have?

-How many devices per employee? These days it’s not uncommon for an employee to have a laptop/workstation, iPad, and a smartphone.

-How much "hand-holding" does your staff require in regards to technology?

In ordtech to computer ratioer to effectively manage and proactively support an organization's technology, the industry standard is that you will need one full-time IT Systems Administrator for each 50 users.

But let's say you only have 20 computer users at your company. According to this standard and based on a 5 day work week, you will need less than one full-time IT person. In fact, mathematically, a business with 20 users would require the services of an IT professional 2 days per week. (A business would 30 users would require 3 days, etc.) And while many independent IT professionals are available for this type of schedule, hiring fractional people does have some drawbacks. Since she is there only two days per week, what happens when something goes down on her off day? What if you have a special project that requires she be there more than two days in one week? Is she available to come in on her “off” days, or are those reserved for other clients?

2 day work weekAll that aside, however, for the purpose of estimating costs,let’s assume you are fine having someone come in just 2 days per week to handle your IT needs.

You’ll now need to determine what skills you’d like them to possess.

-Do you need an engineer who can build and configure your network?

-Do you have the infrastructure in place and just need someone who can manage and maintain things?

-Perhaps you’re merely looking for more of a break/fix technician who can help diagnose problems when they occur and do light computer repair.

It would be nice to have all those things but remember, you’re hiring someone part time, for just a few days per week. Perhaps the best scenario in this case would then be to find a system administrator who can watch over things plus change out hard drives or other basic computer repairs when needed. Again, keep in mind these things will occur only 2 days per week.

A quick check of Indeed.com shows that the average IT SysAdmin in Grand Rapids earns $75,000 per year. Therefore, if you can find someone willing to accept your 2-day schedule, you’ll need to plan on spending at least $30,000 per year, or $1500 per computer annually.

That's $30,000 a year, not including any payroll additions such as taxes and unemployment insurance, in order to have someone come in just a couple days each week.

 

Part Time vs. ALL the Time

Wouldn't it be nice, however, if you didn't have to rely on your IT needs to occur on the two days that your part-time contractor was onsite? What if you had an entire team of IT professionals --  with a full spectrum of skills -- available to you at all times? A team to continually monitor and maintain your systems around the clock to ensure that they are secure and performing at optimum performance. And imagine if this team also had Help Desk services available to assist each and every member of your staff with questions or issues  24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year.

This is what you get with our Securelink Essentials managed services contract. And all of this actually costs LESS than the $1500 per computer per year we figured it would cost to hire someone above. So you see,

THIS is when it makes sense to outsource your IT.

Ready to make the change to a more consistent and reliable form of technology management? Give us a call at 616.776.0400 to see how economical and advantageous a Securelink Essentials program can be.