Why Hourly It Is Almost Never A Great Value

In this economy, one of the ways that business owners and executives are learning

to cut costs and keep the bottom line moving in the right direction is by eliminating unnecessary monthly expenses. But when it comes to your company's technology, are you absolutely sure you know what's essential?

That's an important question if you're used to paying for IT support on an hourly basis. On the surface, paying for outsourced IT support "only when you need it" seems like a great idea until you realize that when you really need it is before something goes truly wrong. With the managed services agreement one that trades all those hourly rates for a low, regular monthly fee you get a much better value.

Here are a few reasons why:

Hourly IT works on a "break-fix" pricing model. When you pay for hourly outsourced IT support, it's true that you only receive an invoice when you need technical support. At the same time, however, you have to realize that a lot of the situations where you "need" IT support could have been dealt with much more quickly, efficiently, and cheaply by not letting them become crises in the first place.

This is the biggest problem with traditional hourly IT. By working on a "break-fix" model that involves your IT provider only when something goes wrong, you let smaller issues fester into bigger ones that require more help later. In other words, it ends up taking a lot more hours because no one thought ahead.

Proactive technical support is always more cost-effective. On the other hand, when you have a monthly managed services agreement at a fixed rate, your IT partner can charge you for fewer hours because they are able to fix problems proactively. Suddenly, life becomes easier for you, your staff, and your outsourced IT team, because they aren't waiting for problems to develop, but keeping a close eye on all of your technology on a day-to-day basis.

The real costs of IT aren't in hours or invoices. Even if the cost savings of proactive IT weren't so great, managed services agreement would still make a lot of sense, if only because your biggest technology costs don't have anything to do with billable hours, or even hardware. The most expensive part of a technology malfunction is the lost productivity from your staff usually amounting to thousands per day in wasted salaries and benefits when your computers or communications aren't working correctly.

By switching to a managed services agreement, you minimize downtime and make the most of every part of your company, not just your technology.

Want to find out more about managed services, and how it affects the bottom line? Schedule an appointment with one of our account managers today, and we'll show you some real-life examples.

by: Peter Marsack

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