Outsourcing IT: Give the IT Guy a Break!

Give the IT guy a break – Why outsourcing IT might be better than the traditional IT guy

Now first let me say, we have nothing against the venerable IT guy, IT administrator or system admin – these are our people and they are often undervalued and overworked– it’s precisely that reason why this article is important for small / medium businesses operators to read and consider the option of outsourcing IT.

You probably know a traditional IT guy and maybe your business has one, heck you may even be the CEO or business owner that expects way too much of one IT person.

Too Much?

It’s come to our attention that this type of person has the responsibilities of three or 4 people (or more!).

1. First they have to field support calls and emails from the user base all day long – the users are relentless, when they email a request  if they don’t get a reply in 60 seconds they will call and ask “did you get my email?” – you know who you are!
2. Second, they have to work on projects – the company needs a new app deployment, web site built, email platform set up, phone system designed, internet providers reviewed, all done by Monday
3. Maintenance – yes IT systems need feeding and watering the entire time, it’s very easy to fall behind on this stuff – maybe even forgetting to check backups or rectify when they fail after a while deferred maintenance becomes overwhelming
4. Admin – Review phone bills, telecoms bills, licenses – if it has a power cord you need to account for it

Now some of these tasks can only be done out of hours so the poor IT guy has to work late or think of these things before bed. Sometimes things go wrong out of hours and the VP of Sales wants to work late – now so does the IT guy. It wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t already had to do that 5 days in a row.

Enough Already!

Finally it gets to the weekend and our IT friend finally thinks he can relax…then the CEO calls, he can’t get his iPad to stream Game of Thrones to the TV and wonders if you could just quickly help….

The life of an IT guy in this situation all alone working for a company probably with up to 75 users or more can get awful pretty quick. Let’s not forget he (or she) needs to keep up with new technologies too. Burn out will probably come for even the hardiest of the variety and who could blame them. Sometimes when the final straw comes the parting of ways isn’t amicable. No documentation is handed over, no passwords are provided and you are left to fend for yourself.

Uh oh

Only then do you discover the multiple years of neglect because the IT guy never had time to do anything properly as he was always pushed from pillar to post.

We often take over in these situations, we have even had the disgruntled IT guy leave back doors and attack the systems of his old employer. Everything becomes precarious quickly. The business is dependent on IT and now discovers how so.

So now what?

When we talk to customers we like to tell them the reasons why our group of seasoned, dedicated, efficiency crazy, IT guys are better than one. Outsourcing IT has immense advantages and here is how Squeeze Technology does it:

1. We are local, successful provider that shares the same zest and fun that most of our customers do – we don’t get overworked because we are a team with processes
2. We generally are less costly than a single employee and certainly can provide better value – a single employee just cannot cover all the hours of support you need, stay up to date, help end users and work on projects – there is simply not enough time in the day – they end up frustrated and miserable and leave – we have taken over many times in this scenario (see above)
3. We have a wide range of skillsets covering all the areas you are interested in (plus more) and are far superior than any single individual could be
4. We can cover more ground, faster and for more hours than an individual, again because we are a team
5. We run other similar size company’s IT in the area and can provide references and draw on experience in terms of what works and doesn’t  -this experience is fed from many locations and scenarios rather than just the current internal ideas an employed individual has exposure to
6. We pool our knowledge and experience from all our customers – our experience comes together in the Squeeze Business Template that forms our latest thinking that we take to new people and bring older customer up to date on relentlessly.
7. We even have web and software development in house.
8. We provide you a fixed price, predictable service – you will not be disappointed

Finally, we employ IT guys and save them from being alone – paying it forward.