Your business has reached a point where somebody needs to take responsibility for IT.
Congratulations.
And also… now what?
Do you hire an IT person?
Do you outsource everything to a Managed Service Provider?
Do you keep your current IT person and bring in outside help?
Or do you continue letting Dave from accounting handle the WiFi because he built a gaming computer once?
Please stop doing that to Dave.
The good news is there is not one correct answer for every business.
An internal IT employee can make perfect sense.
A Managed Service Provider, commonly called an MSP, can make perfect sense too.
Sometimes the best answer is actually both.
The important thing is understanding what your business needs and choosing an IT model that can actually support it.
What Is the Difference Between an IT Person and a Managed IT Company?
The biggest difference is pretty straightforward.
When you hire an internal IT employee, you are hiring one person to become part of your organization.
When you hire a managed IT company, you are hiring a team of people and the systems they use to manage technology.
An internal IT employee might handle:
- Employee support
- Computer setup
- Microsoft 365
- Printers
- Networking
- Servers
- Software
- Vendor relationships
- Cybersecurity
- Hardware purchases
- Backups
- Technology projects
A Managed Service Provider can handle many of those same responsibilities.
The difference is that an MSP usually has multiple people with different areas of expertise.
Instead of asking one person to know everything about everything, you have access to a team.
That distinction becomes increasingly important as your technology gets more complicated.
What Are the Advantages of Hiring an Internal IT Person?
There are plenty.
Internal IT employees can become deeply familiar with your organization.
They know your employees.
They understand how departments work.
They learn the weird little things about your business that probably do not exist anywhere else.
They are also physically present when you need someone to walk into an office and look at something.
For businesses with significant technology needs, having internal IT can be incredibly valuable.
An internal IT person can also focus entirely on your organization.
They are not working with other businesses.
They are working for you.
That can make internal IT especially useful when your company has:
- Highly specialized applications
- Complicated internal workflows
- Significant technology projects
- Large numbers of employees
- Multiple locations
- Specialized hardware
- Unique compliance requirements
- Frequent onsite technology needs
The question is not whether internal IT is good.
It absolutely can be.
The question is whether one person can realistically handle everything your business expects IT to do.
What Are the Challenges of Hiring One IT Person?
This is where things get complicated.
Think about everything modern business IT includes.
- You have computers.
- Servers.
- Networks.
- Microsoft 365.
- Cloud applications.
- Cybersecurity.
- Backups.
- Email.
- Phones.
- Vendor management.
- Projects.
- Employee support.
- Documentation.
- Strategic planning.
Now ask one person to be an expert in all of it.
That is a pretty big ask.
It would be similar to hiring one person and expecting them to handle accounting, human resources, legal, sales and marketing because all of those things technically fall under “business.”
They are related.
They are not the same job.
IT works the same way.
Someone who is fantastic at helping employees troubleshoot computer problems might not be a cybersecurity expert.
A great network engineer might not enjoy working a help desk.
Someone who understands servers may not specialize in Microsoft 365 security.
One person can certainly know a lot.
But modern technology has become far too broad for anyone to be an expert in everything.
What Happens When Your IT Person Goes on Vacation?
This sounds like a small issue until it happens.
Your IT person finally takes a well deserved vacation.
Their phone goes on Do Not Disturb.
They are sitting somewhere with a drink in their hand.
Then your server stops working.
Who handles it?
What happens when your IT person is sick?
What happens if two employees need urgent help while your IT person is working on a major project?
What happens when they attend training?
Or eventually leave the company?
Businesses sometimes accidentally create an environment where an enormous amount of institutional knowledge lives inside one person’s head.
- Passwords.
- Network configurations.
- Vendor contacts.
- Licensing information.
- Server information.
- Documentation.
- Processes.
Then that person leaves.
Suddenly everyone realizes how much they knew.
Good IT management needs redundancy just like good technology does.
You should never have a single point of failure.
That includes people.
What Are the Advantages of Using a Managed IT Company?
The biggest advantage is access to a larger team.
A good MSP should have people with experience across multiple areas of technology.
That means the person helping an employee reset a password does not necessarily need to be the same person planning your network infrastructure.
You can have different people working on:
- Help desk support
- Networking
- Microsoft 365
- Cybersecurity
- Servers
- Cloud infrastructure
- Backup and recovery
- Technology projects
- Strategic planning
At Digital Boardwalk, our Fully Managed IT Services are designed around managing the entire technology environment rather than simply responding when something breaks.
That includes the work employees see and a lot of work they never see.
- Monitoring.
- Maintenance.
- Security.
- Planning.
- Documentation.
- Backup testing.
- Lifecycle management.
All the boring stuff that becomes extremely exciting when nobody has been doing it.
Is an MSP Just an Outsourced Help Desk?
It should not be.
Employee support is certainly part of managed IT.
Someone cannot log into Outlook.
A printer stops printing.
The computer is running slowly.
Those problems need to be solved.
But if that is all your MSP does, you are missing a large portion of what managed IT is supposed to accomplish.
The goal should not simply be:
Something broke. We fixed it quickly.
The better goal is:
Why did it break, and what can we do to prevent it from happening again?
That means your IT company should also be thinking about cybersecurity, aging hardware, recurring problems, backups, technology planning and the overall health of your environment.
We dig into this more in our article about What You Should Expect From Your IT Company Every Month, because much of the value of good IT management should happen before someone ever opens a support ticket.
Is an MSP Cheaper Than Hiring an IT Person?
This is usually one of the first questions businesses ask.
But comparing the monthly cost of an MSP directly against one employee’s salary does not tell the whole story.
Hiring an employee involves more than salary.
Depending on your organization, there may also be:
- Payroll taxes
- Health insurance
- Retirement benefits
- Paid time off
- Training
- Certifications
- Recruiting costs
- Computer equipment
- Software
- Management time
Then you need to consider the tools your IT department needs.
- Monitoring.
- Remote support.
- Cybersecurity.
- Backup systems.
- Documentation.
- Password management.
- Network management.
Those tools cost money too.
An MSP typically spreads the cost of its people, tools and infrastructure across multiple clients.
That can make it possible for smaller organizations to access technology resources that would be expensive to build entirely in house.
But price should not be the only deciding factor.
The better question is:
Which model gives our business the support, expertise and coverage we actually need?
How Many IT People Does My Business Need?
That depends on what your employees expect IT to handle.
A company with 100 employees might assume one IT person is enough.
And maybe that person can keep up with daily support requests.
But what happens when they also need to:
- Manage cybersecurity
- Test backups
- Replace aging computers
- Maintain servers
- Manage Microsoft 365
- Work with vendors
- Update documentation
- Complete projects
- Review network performance
- Plan next year’s technology budget
Daily emergencies tend to win.
Strategic work gets pushed to tomorrow.
Then tomorrow becomes next week.
Next week becomes next quarter.
Eventually your IT person spends their entire day reacting to problems.
That is not necessarily because they are doing a bad job.
They may simply have too much to do.
What If I Already Have a Great IT Person?
Keep them.
Seriously.
If you have an internal IT employee who understands your business, works well with your employees and knows your environment, replacing them might make absolutely no sense.
Instead, give them help.
This is where Co Managed IT Services can be extremely useful.
With Co Managed IT, Digital Boardwalk works alongside your existing IT team rather than replacing it.
Maybe your internal IT person handles employee support while we help with cybersecurity.
Maybe your team handles daily operations while we provide additional engineering resources.
Maybe they need help with projects.
Maybe they need backup coverage when someone takes vacation.
Maybe your IT Director wants to spend more time planning and less time resetting passwords.
The responsibilities can be divided based on what actually makes sense for your organization.
Your internal IT team keeps doing what they do best.
We help fill the gaps.
When Does Co Managed IT Make More Sense Than Fully Outsourced IT?
Co Managed IT can be a great option when you already have technology resources but need additional capacity or expertise.
For example, you might consider a Co Managed model if:
- You have one IT employee supporting a growing company
- Your IT team is overwhelmed with support requests
- Projects keep getting delayed
- Cybersecurity requires more attention
- Your team needs specialized engineering expertise
- You need coverage during vacations or sick days
- You are opening additional locations
- Your IT Director needs help executing their technology roadmap
- You need access to better IT management tools
- You want outside expertise without replacing your internal team
Sometimes the smartest IT hire is not another full time employee.
It is giving the employees you already have better resources.
Who Handles Cybersecurity?
This question deserves special attention.
Cybersecurity has become its own discipline.
It is no longer reasonable to assume that whoever fixes computers automatically knows how to protect your organization from modern cyber threats.
Modern cybersecurity can involve:
- Endpoint protection
- Email security
- Multi Factor Authentication
- Identity management
- Security monitoring
- Vulnerability management
- Employee cybersecurity training
- Zero Trust security
- Attack Surface Management
- Incident response
- Backup and recovery
That is a lot for one person to continuously manage while also helping Susan figure out why her second monitor stopped working.
This is where an MSP or dedicated cybersecurity provider can add another layer of expertise.
Digital Boardwalk provides Managed Cybersecurity Services designed to help businesses continuously monitor and strengthen their security posture.
Because cybersecurity should not be something your IT person gets around to when they finally have a quiet afternoon.
Who Is Responsible for Backups?
Someone needs to be.
Not theoretically.
Not “the system automatically does it.”
An actual person needs to be responsible for making sure your backups work.
A dashboard saying Backup Successful is reassuring.
It is not the same thing as knowing you can actually restore your business.
Backups should be monitored and tested.
At Digital Boardwalk, our Backup & Recovery Services include regular backup testing because the first time you attempt to recover important data should not be five minutes after something terrible happens.
We recently talked about this in How Long Can Your Business Actually Survive Without Its Technology?.
The question is not simply whether you have backups.
It is how quickly your business can get back to work.
Should a Small Business Hire an IT Person or Use an MSP?
For many small businesses, starting with an MSP makes more sense than immediately building an internal IT department.
You gain access to multiple people and skill sets without needing to recruit, hire and manage an entire technology team.
As the organization grows, that can change.
Eventually it might make sense to hire someone internally.
And when that happens, you do not necessarily need to fire your MSP.
Your MSP can transition into a Co Managed role.
That gives your internal IT employee access to additional people, tools and expertise.
Your technology model grows with your company.
When Does Hiring Internal IT Make More Sense?
There are absolutely situations where hiring internally is the better choice.
Internal IT may make more sense when:
- Your company is large enough to support multiple IT employees
- Your business has highly specialized technology
- You need significant onsite support every day
- Your technology team is deeply integrated into your operations
- You have constant internal technology projects
- You require dedicated technology leadership
And even then, you might still outsource certain responsibilities.
Cybersecurity is a common example.
So are backups, after hours monitoring and specialized projects.
The goal should not be choosing internal IT or outsourced IT because somebody told you one model is better.
The goal is building the right IT team for your business.
How Do I Know Which IT Model Is Right for My Business?
Start by looking at what you actually need.
Ask yourself:
- How many employees need IT support?
- How quickly do we expect technical problems to be resolved?
- How complicated is our technology?
- Do we need onsite IT support every day?
- Who is responsible for cybersecurity?
- Who manages our backups?
- Who manages Microsoft 365?
- Who handles technology projects?
- Who covers IT when someone is on vacation?
- Who documents our environment?
- Who plans future technology purchases?
- Who reviews aging hardware?
- Who manages vendors?
- What happens if our primary IT person leaves?
Those answers usually make the decision much easier.
You may discover you need an internal IT person.
You may discover fully outsourced IT makes more sense.
Or you may realize you already have the right person and simply need to give them more help.
There Is No Rule Saying You Have to Choose One
This is probably the most important takeaway.
The decision does not always have to be:
Internal IT or MSP.
Technology is not that simple anymore.
You might need:
Internal IT and an MSP.
Maybe your employees love working with your current IT person.
Great.
Let them keep that relationship.
Then give that person access to engineers, cybersecurity specialists, additional help desk resources, monitoring tools and project support.
Or maybe your business has no interest in building an internal IT department at all.
That works too.
Digital Boardwalk’s Fully Managed IT Services can take responsibility for managing your technology environment, while our Co Managed IT Services can work alongside an IT team you already have.
The right answer depends on your business.
Not ours.
Build the IT Team Your Business Actually Needs
Your business probably did not start because you were excited about managing Microsoft 365 licenses and testing backups.
Technology is supposed to help your employees do their jobs.
Someone still has to take care of everything behind it.
Sometimes that means hiring an IT person.
Sometimes that means partnering with an MSP.
Sometimes it means combining the two.
What matters is that your employees have support, your technology is maintained, your cybersecurity is taken seriously and somebody is thinking about what happens next.
If you are trying to figure out which approach makes sense, talk with the Digital Boardwalk team.
We can look at what you already have, what your internal team is handling, where the gaps are and whether Fully Managed or Co Managed IT makes sense.
And if you already have a great IT person?
Don’t replace them.
Give them a bigger team.