Running a small business is a balancing act. You are very familiar with what needs to happen in order for your business to run properly. Juggling sales, marketing, operations, and customer service leaves little room for anything else, but one critical area often gets overlooked: IT support. Many small business owners think they can’t afford comprehensive tech support, but outsource IT support for small businesses is a game changer.

You are likely always looking at ways to save money. Outsource IT support for small businesses might seem like a luxury. It is often a cost-effective necessity.

Why Outsource IT Support?

• Why Outsource IT Support?
  • The Real Cost of Downtime
  • The Struggle to Keep Up
• Key Benefits of Outsourcing IT for Your Business
  • Focus on What You Do Best
  • Access a Broader Range of Expertise
  • Predictable Budgeting, Better Value
  • Improved Security and Risk Management
• Choosing the Right Service for your Company
  • Assess Your Needs
  • Fully Outsourced vs. Co-Managed IT Services
  • What Services Provide?
• Services Offered by External Providers
  • Managed Services: Proactive and Round the Clock Support
  • Cybersecurity: Keeping Data Safe
  • Disaster Recovery: Recover Quickly After Outages
  • Cloud Services and Digital Transformation
  • Vendor Management: No Longer have Headaches
• Comparing Costs: Outsourced vs. In-House
  • Cost Breakdown for In House IT Support
  • How Outsource IT support helps the cost of your entire company?
  • A Look at Real Savings
• FAQs about Outsource IT support for small businesses
  • How much does IT support cost for a small business?
  • How much does IT cost to outsource IT support?
  • What is the best IT solution for small business?
  • What are the three types of IT outsourcing?
• Conclusion

Why Outsource IT Support?

Small businesses face big challenges. One of those large problems is related to cybersecurity. Did you know that 43% of cyber attacks target small businesses? Only 14% of SMBs can handle the attacks on their own making it a very big risk.

Outsourcing gives you access to specialized knowledge. You get that without the massive overhead of hiring a full-time, in-house support team.

The Real Cost of Downtime

Imagine your entire system crashing right before a critical deadline. The cost of IT downtime can be huge, possibly up to $300,000 per hour for some businesses.

The impact on business goes well beyond those types of immediate issues though. Constant tech problems decrease overall office productivity. In fact, research reveals two thirds of people said their tech hurts their productivity. Don’t get caught in this trap with your organization.

The Struggle to Keep Up

It can also cause major stress with hiring and training in-house employees to try and resolve the issue internally. Technology is always moving, so it can be really tough to stay on top of every new innovation and requirement. It’s no wonder many small business leaders find it difficult to roll out new technology.

This might cause people to feel their business is at a competitive disadvantage. Partnering with the right service provider gives you access to technology experts who deal with these challenges daily.

Key Benefits of Outsourcing IT for Your Business

Beyond just fixing computer glitches, managed service providers offer many advantages.

Focus on What You Do Best

Every minute spent wrestling with IT issues is time not spent on your main thing. Outsourcing allows you and your internal resources to focus on driving sales. It helps you with strategic initiatives to expand.

Access a Broader Range of Expertise

It is next to impossible for a business to afford experts in all specialties. External providers have whole departments dedicated to cloud services, cybersecurity, network management, and data protection.

Having access to people focused on their niche can be helpful in growing. A 2019 CompTIA survey report showed more than half of small and medium-sized businesses used an MSP in their work.

Predictable Budgeting, Better Value

You have better value through fixed monthly fees. Monthly payments let you properly budget for expenses so there’s no more surprises or extra big projects expenses that would come up. This is a major difference, because most business are reactive to fix issues.

Consider the difference between fully outsourced vs in-house. For the lower cost of a monthly fee, an external team becomes your virtual CIO. A seasoned IT Manager alone will run around $150,000 a year.

Improved Security and Risk Management

Cyber threats are evolving quickly. Keeping up is difficult with things always changing.

A JumpCloud survey confirmed the concerns. 87.5% of SMBs either currently partnered or are looking to do so.

Choosing the Right Service for your Company

Several factors influence your choices.

Assess Your Needs

Think of it as starting your “scope”. Be very detailed on this, so you understand your business’s particular situation and any potential risk management needs.

Begin by making an honest look at your current team, infrastructure, and business strategy. This lets you know what can work best for your small business with the situation at hand.

Fully Outsourced vs. Co-Managed IT Services

Do you lack any internal tech support at all? You are looking to probably want fully outsourced help. These teams fix hardware issues as well as manage complex project management.

Are you instead just wanting help for specialized jobs, while also wanting to keep your existing internal support? Then co-managed IT services is a solid option. A third option, is leveraging a team focused on [making IT work for small businesses](https://cyzerg.com/blog/making-it-work-for-small-businesses/). This allows your IT team to handle their specialties, while not burdening them with mundane work.

What Services Provide?

Look for key functions such as data backup and network monitoring. Proactive monitoring goes along way for security too.

Different providers include different options in their service offerings, but you are often better looking at customized packages. Be aware of service providers offering all services for a lower cost.

Services Offered by External Providers

It isn’t always enough to keep fixing equipment that continues to break down. IT services now a days are more advanced to deal with security, infrastructure, and remote management. A true partner helps to remove unpleasant surprises and keeps things streamlined to give peace of mind knowing they have your small businesses IT covered.

Managed Services: Proactive and Round the Clock Support

Managed services gives you data protection and makes things work smoothly. Here’s what’s usually included:

• 24/7 network monitoring This makes for quicker responses when things come up.
• Remote support Fast fixes for a lot of user and tech issues.
• Software updates and patch management Improves your systems and avoids problems before they even arise.

Cybersecurity: Keeping Data Safe

Keeping your company’s data and information secure is hard, especially when threats keep coming up. Businesses benefit a ton by adding round-the-clock support.

A 2019 study by IT Pros show most common cyberattacks were due to malware, phishing, and ransomware.

Disaster Recovery: Recover Quickly After Outages

Outages occur at any time, whether that is caused by mother nature, internal user issues or any outside hacking of some kind. Data losses can crush your small business if you do not have backups setup.

Managed service providers can take on things such as, round-the-clock support. They can restore things with a backup.

Cloud Services and Digital Transformation

More organizations are seeing their benefits, because costs for outsourced IT are a lot cheaper compared to doing things internally. The small business owner may not need the in house expenses or have enough staff to complete what is required.

For this they partner for managed cloud services or to start on the route to digital transformation to handle things. In 2023, 460 billion dollars was spent on IT Outsourcing alone across the country.

Vendor Management: No Longer have Headaches

Many third-party provider offer vendor management to centralize your communication. It will make you far more productive in your work and keep things a lot easier.

When IT companies manage that on your behalf, you can improve operations. The MSP monitors your IT resources.

Comparing Costs: Outsourced vs. In-House

In general, in house costs keep changing as equipment goes bad or employees want pay raises. With IT outsourcing, things are a little bit more consistent on what you have to budget on. But let’s see how each cost is viewed.

Cost Breakdown for In House IT Support

Consider not just wages for staff members, but also:

• Recruiting and training costs.
• Employee benefits, vacation time, and any sick time.
• Overhead costs such as office space, supplies, extra computer and hardware requirements.
• Software and equipment upgrades and maintenance charges.

Hiring a single help desk employee could cost around $40 hourly on wages alone.

How Outsource IT support helps the cost of your entire company?

Typically service providers will package all the services. A flat monthly payment means you know your total before the month even starts. Services provide all those areas we spoke about including:

• Desk support and remote troubleshooting
• Proactive monitoring and security updates.
• Virtual CIO planning meetings to provide insight.

These fees vary from the needs, but often reduce costs by using these types of options. These type of agreements are becoming very common. The size of outsourced markets is projected to hit USD 525.2 billion in the upcoming several years.

A Look at Real Savings

Outsourcing is being viewed as a big factor for success, due to the savings. Businesses report IT outsourcing reducing costs by as much as 53% in various areas.

This has become a trend overall to work with outside experts in their field. Did you also know 24% of small businesses use outsourced services?

FAQs about Outsource IT support for small businesses

How much does IT support cost for a small business?

Costs vary a bunch. This varies, but things you would have to account for, is not only employee costs, but also software and equipment required to have them run.

Employee costs such as a desktop technician’s salary falls in between $50,000-$60,000 a year. If it is more complex an IT manager would cost roughly $150,000 a year or more based on seniority and skillset. Things such as cost of benefits and sick time should also be considered.

How much does IT cost to outsource IT support?

There are more variables for Outsourced help. Those types of partners also cost from your particular size, users and systems.

Generally the benefits outweigh in house costs with consistent expenses for monthly agreements instead of potential problems. These benefits range for things such as having remote access or better yet, dedicated in house experts, along with dedicated teams for various technology support. It is predicted by Gartner, that world wide outsourcing will grow greatly in upcoming years.

What is the best IT solution for small business?

The top answer for your particular company can’t be the same as any other small business out there. Why? Because of how unique things may be.

In addition there are way too many things to think of and evaluate like team dynamics or requirements for software and systems. But for most [small businesses](https://ecommercefastlane.com/essential-digital-pr-tips-for-small-businesses/), getting some external IT services can solve your biggest issues.

The more proactive a plan you setup ahead of time will help, versus simply trying to always fix a computer right away.

What are the three types of IT outsourcing?

You see the full IT management with all hardware and software. There are other teams who specialize in areas.

The core structure generally looks something like:

• Nearshoring: Working with groups based nearby with potential same language.
• Offshoring: Goes broader range to cover global talents and providers to cost reduction as low as possible.
• Onshoring: Teams stay based in the same local markets for best knowledge of things around and availability.

Conclusion

Outsource IT support for small businesses isn’t just about fixing immediate technical problems, but creating better processes. Embracing a larger perspective gives more value while building on future improvements that impact a growing business. Consider using an external service provider for your growing company to keep your business running smoothly.