My in-house IT staff are so slow. What are my options?

Many businesses argue that in-house IT staff provide loyalty and gain specific knowledge that solves local problems faster. However when I hire IT people who have been the in-house person, they often say the reason for moving is the stresses of having been a poorly trained “cost centre” within the business, with unrealistic expectations placed on them for delivery.  They typically look forward to being part of a team of like-minded people who are part of the company’s income stream.  

For example, my business Combo looks after systems for IT companies, among others.   These clients develop software, and had realised that they were spending too much time looking after infrastructure, and so they outsourced.  If IT companies outsource with all their specialist requirements and knowledge, who is there that should not outsource?

Now, I am convinced that if you do not have the capacity to run a team of at least three IT people you should outsource your IT to a company. But make sure the company you decide to outsource to has excellent management systems and at least seven technical staff.

Yes, it could be argued that I am biased, but I have a good range of experience to base this on. I have worked as the one in-house IT guy, I have run in-house teams of six staff,  I have run a one-man IT services business, and today I run a fast growth medium size outsource company.

As my name is David, I like the story of David and Goliath, and I can relate it to this issue quite nicely. 

David went up against a huge army led by a giant and got in one very lucky shot that ended a battle and a war.  In IT the odds of one person hitting Goliath with an IT solution is significantly lower, as the war is against an industry where the rate of change is still accelerating. 

No one person can cover the huge range of emerging technologies at a suitable level to know what to deploy next or how to deploy it.  So there is no one stone and no suitable soft spot on the giant to hit.  One person may win a battle or two, but not the war.

These days every business needs a team of IT people to ensure the breadth of focus is met, from infrastructure to security to applications to web to communications.  Each SME business needs to have – a strategy for receiving and following IT related advice; IT action plans for staying ahead of the competition; IT problems never appearing in the first place, going away when they do appear and being measured to provide a basis for improvement.

We can no longer afford to focus on just one aspect of IT in any given year; we must keep many aspects improving to stay on top of our business.

If you are thinking about hiring a new internal person for any one aspect of your business, I suggest you look very closely at the benefits of outsourcing to specialists who can provide a broader range of solutions in a fraction of the time, and usually at a better cost.

•-          You can access hundreds of days of training for a fraction of the costs.

•-          You get the benefit of knowledge sharing that happens when a team of people working on similar issues get together regularly.

•-          You get instant access to experience gained on other similar jobs.

•-          You share the cost of skills development across all of the clients of the service provider, including the cost of developing solutions to new problems or threats.

 Obviously you remove the gaps between full time employees as they come and go, sick leave and holidays.  With an outsourced help desk you even remove the gap of a lunch break.  You remove the issue of long shifts or split shifts and so much more.

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