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In today’s business landscape it would be hard to find any company that doesn’t have at least some part of their operations reliant on technology. Technology plays a critical role in many companies today — just think of the amount of tech needed to run a business: computers, servers, printers, networks, software for internal and customer-facing operations, apps, workstations, cloud solutions, to just name a few. Add to that the ever-evolving nature of technology and we can begin to see how managing IT can be a challenge for companies of all sizes.

In-house IT team or an MSP?

Every company wants to ensure a high level of efficiency, personalization and innovation of their technology, all while keeping the costs down. Larger organizations and enterprises have bigger budgets and resources to employ an in-house IT team. But when it comes to small companies and startups, whether high-tech or tech-enabled, having the funds, resources, and time needed to do the same proves challenging. 

One solution many startups have already turned to are Managed IT Services Providers. MSPs consist of outsourcing anything IT-related: from hardware maintenance and managing installations and upgrades to web hosting, network security, disaster recovery, and a popular one — managing the cloud infrastructure. 

But is an MSP the right solution for your startup? Would you get more benefit from having your IT team just across the room? 

What kind of startups benefit from a Managed IT Services Provider? 

The “MSP or in-house IT” is a prevalent debate and a worthy consideration to ensure business productivity and continuity as your startup grows. If you are a one man show and decently tech-savvy, you might not need managed IT services. But, for small companies and startups that are striving to grow their business, an MSP can be a worthy and beneficial investment until they reach a certain size. When we talk about startups, we refer to both high-tech and tech-enabled startups that are less or around 5 years old with less than 100 employees. 

High-tech startups are the high risk/reward startups lead with technology innovation. Their success is rooted in delivering innovative technology and patents and carry a high risk due to the possibility of never adapting to the commercial market. 

Tech-enabled startups, on the other hand, don’t create new technology, but they work creatively with existing tech and offer completing solutions to improve an existing market. 

While it might appear that high-tech startups would see more value in leveraging a managed IT provider with their broad and advanced IT needs, tech-enabled companies are still heavily reliant on technology, maybe even more so. 

The thing is, leveraging an MSP doesn’t have to be an all-encompassing solution where your entire infrastructure is handled by a third-party provider, you can always outsource some parts of your IT operations, while keeping some in-house. In any case, and whether you are a high-tech or tech-enabled startup, leveraging an MSP can be beneficial.

Benefits of using an MSP over an in-house IT department

There are some main benefits that we have seen in startups that have chosen to leverage an MSP for their IT operations over having an in-house IT department or a single CTO responsible for the entire infrastructure.

No recruitment and training costs

Have you ever wondered what are the estimated recruitment costs to hire a single employee? Statistics show that, on average, they can be anywhere between $3500 to $5000 per employee. This counts in the time needed to find the perfect fit which can result in monetary losses for the startup. 

When hiring a whole IT team, even if it’s only 2 or 3 people, it is a monetary and time-consuming ordeal. And even if you manage to create and hire a reliable IT team, they would still need proper training, courses and continuous support anytime a new technology is being employed. 

Hiring an MSP over a team of employees cuts out all the recruitment and training costs and the time needed to be set up and running. When working with an MSP, you are working with an already experienced team of IT professionals that are up-to-date with the most advanced IT services.

Continuous reliability

Your IT team will need to take vacations, sick leaves, day-off...and that is completely expected. But what happens when your server goes down and the employee responsible for it is on vacation? Add to that the possibility of security issues and attacks occurring after hours where there is no one to prevent them, and you might have a recipe for disaster. Business operations and security don’t have weekends after all. Having an in-house IT team can be incredibly costly, and is just not considered a viable option for startups.

MSPs have many valuable resources and experts available to assist your startup 24/7, when any IT issue occurs. Continuous reliability will ensure your business productivity and operations don’t depend on whether someone is on vacation and will ensure you are always up and running.

Scalability

As your startup grows, so do your IT needs. The costs and hassle involved with changing and upgrading technology you use, re-training your IT staff, combined with the constantly evolving landscape of new and advanced tech, are sometimes just not worth it. 

MSPs offer startups to only pay for the services they use at that point in time, and allow them to scale up to higher levels of service when their technology and headcount needs grow. This means you will be paying for only services and capabilities you need at that time but still having the option of scaling up to cutting-edge tech with advice and help from MSP’s technical experts.

Proactive approach and enhanced security

We mentioned that continuous reliability and availability of IT experts for your startup ensures that IT issues that cause down-time, loss of business continuity, or even worse, data breaches, are handled as they occur. 

Continuous monitoring and the most up-to-date security offered by MSPs to startups can mean the difference between proactively resolving IT issues as they arise, before they can impact their IT infrastructure, and merely reacting to them after they have already occurred. 

Your MSP will help you with network protection and thwarting any cyber threats and risks by having advanced security solutions that are often outside of a startup budget. Additionally, they will have a backup and plan in place to protect your sensitive data if an attack does occur.  

Cost efficiency and return on investment

Leveraging an MSP shouldn’t be considered as a cost, but as an investment in the growth of your startup. Let’s talk some numbers to demonstrate this:

A cost of having an in-house IT team comes up to around $75,000 a year. When going with an MSP for your IT services, you can look at around 18,000 a year for it. And this cost accompanies all the other benefits we’ve mentioned: highly skilled experts, up-to-date technology and security, continuous monitoring and support, ability to scale up easily that increase the ROI.

When talking with your chosen MSP, you will negotiate the budget in advance and before you start the transition, meaning that your IT costs are predictable each month and you can accordingly plan for future improvements. Managed IT service providers fundamentally provide cost savings and increased ROI, a reason why many startups have already chosen them as a solution for their IT needs.

Choose Xceptional as your MSP

Here at Xceptional, we are specialized in providing proactive and innovative IT solutions to businesses and startups. If you are interested in a new IT partner for your high-tech or tech-enabled startup, check out the full scope of our Managed IT Services. You can also schedule a complimentary consultation with one of our business technology experts and see how we can fulfil your IT needs. 

Remember — it’s not about what technology can do, it’s about what your business can do with technology.