How Much Should You Be Spending On Your It Support?

If you are thinking about outsourcing some or all of your IT support it can be very

difficult to know how much to spend and whether a quote from a supplier is good value. When you're trying to judge a proposal from a supplier there is lots to consider, so we've put together some ideas to think about during the evaluation process.

Think about savings as well as costs - your first reaction to the costs of an outsourced IT supplier is 'that's expensive'! However, when you break it down it can be much more reasonable. How much money could a day's IT problem cost your business in lost revenue? Having a reliable source of IT advice that can solve a problem just in time for that important presentation can at that particular moment prove priceless. In a recent survey carried out by The Internet Group we found 57% of the servers had failed to be updated with the latest Microsoft fixes for over 6 months, yet this is the kind of precaution every company should take.

Do you have non specialists whose time costs you more than the outsourced option? Another common pitfall that people make when they outsource IT is that they underestimate how much their IT support is currently costing them. If you have one of your managers, top engineers or in some cases the Managing Director solving IT problems you may not fully appreciate how much that time is costing the business. If you are a consultancy you may know how much your charge your time out at, but even if not, you can probably realise that this is a false economy. For example in a recent survey The Internet Group found 58% of the business owners did not know the Administrator Password to their own network, the time spent trying to recall this is time not spent effectively by the business owner.

It may save you costs of hardware in the future - if you're not running an efficient network you may need to invest in expensive hardware more quickly than you need to. Saving this capital expenditure can do wonders for your cash flow even if in the short term you may be paying a bit more on a monthly basis but it may work out more affordable in the long run.

Pre-emptively solving problems - another benefit of an experienced outsourced managed service provider is their level of experience which in many cases allows them to spot potential problems before they become mission critical this type of insight can save hours of down time and thousands of pounds in lost revenue. Another example of this in the survey was that 72% of companies had not provisioned for the growth of their data and were unaware they were running out of disk space, potentially a significant but avoidable problem for the future.

As with any quote, shop around - the more suppliers you talk to the more confident you'll become about the value of any particular option, plus never underestimate the importance of building a personal rapport with the individuals working at a company. You can grill them about how watertight their processes are and how they deal with mission critical problems like disaster recovery.

by: john mce

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