Most mid-sized to large businesses already have an IT team in place, whether that’s fully in-house or supported by an IT support provider. On paper, you should be able to handle everything that is thrown at you, because you have an internal IT manager to handle the strategic work and a team you can rely on to keep things running day-to-day.
But right now, something doesn’t feel right.
You want to work far more strategically and look ahead to see how your tech stack needs to evolve. You want to be proactive so you can have the right systems in place as your business changes. But you and your team seem to spend the day dealing with password problems, figuring out why your Wi-Fi connections are slow or intermittent, and trying to stop your colleagues from clicking on obvious phishing links.
You’re under pressure from your senior leadership team because KPIs are falling behind, and your IT projects are overrunning on time and budget. The obvious answer seems to be to hire someone new, but you know the business doesn’t have the budget for an experienced IT manager, and you don’t have the time to train someone from scratch.
This is usually the point where businesses start to question whether IT outsourcing is the right move.
But your problems aren’t caused by capacity or capability.
Your problems come from having a rigid team structure that hasn’t kept up with what your business now needs.
Your team is set up to keep things running, but you can’t do that and deliver strategic change at the same time.
This is where co-managed IT support in Essex can make sense for many businesses. You’re not replacing your team or hiring someone new; you’re finding a way to help all your staff members move out of reactive mode and start working more proactively.
Why is your internal IT team structure causing you problems?
Most in-house IT teams are initially set up to manage your business’s day-to-day operations, often alongside IT help desk support and user management.
As you’ve added new staff to your business, you’ll need more time to set up user accounts, ensure devices and software are up to date, and manage user access settings.
The problem is that your team structure hasn’t changed.
This is why simply adding more internal resources or switching your IT support provider doesn’t always resolve the issue.
Even if you’ve been promoted to an IT manager role or a Head of IT position, you’re still handling some of the day-to-day work that you thought you would be stepping back from.
This is where your bottlenecks are coming from. It’s also why hiring someone new might help with your short-term capacity issues, but it won’t resolve the actual problem because your team structure hasn’t changed.
Most internal IT teams aren’t under-resourced.
They’re just structured for a different stage of the business.
That’s where bringing in a co-managed or outsourced IT support provider can help.
Working with an external IT team can help you restructure your team and provide the support you’re looking for where you need it most. It’s not a replacement for your internal team, but you’ll benefit from additional resources for specific projects, which will keep your KPIs on track. You’ll be able to have additional capacity during busy periods, or even to cover annual leave allowances, as well as access to specialist expertise that does not exist in-house.
Outsourcing IT support doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing decision, especially for businesses looking for IT support in Essex. Bringing in an external team can help your business achieve better results by adding more support when and where it’s needed.
How co-managed IT support in Essex can help your business grow
You might be worried that bringing in an external IT team to co-manage your IT support shows a weakness. After all, how can you explain to your senior team that you need to outsource your IT when you have a fully functional team working for you?
With co-managed IT support, you still retain control and complete ownership of your systems, your decisions and the direction of your systems. But the external IT support team will integrate with your existing processes and give you support where you need it most.
You’ve recognised that your team structure is a weakness that’s rapidly turning into a threat. Bringing in an external IT support provider allows you to turn that weakness into a strength and an opportunity.
Here’s how outsourcing your IT to collaborate with your internal team can work in practice.
Critical IT projects can stay on time and in budget
If you’re working on a substantial project such as a cloud migration, office move, or major upgrades, you know that you need to focus your time and energy on it.
You’ve probably already recognised that you need to bring in specialist expertise because, without additional support, these projects either take longer than they should or disrupt the business.
When you bring in an external IT project management team, you can rely on them to give you the additional capacity you need to focus on the specific project, which frees up your internal team to remain focused on their usual tasks. This not only prevents issues from arising but also means you can better manage your time, as projects will be ready by your anticipated go-live date.
If you’re not sure what we mean, here’s an example of our collaboration with an in-house team on a relocation project.
You have an extra resource to strengthen your cybersecurity
We all know that we need to constantly prioritise our cybersecurity settings. If even one gap emerges, it can create a vulnerability that hackers can exploit.
But with so many issues to deal with, how can you ever stay on top of your security defences?
You need to make sure that you’re up to date with your Cyber Essentials certification, schedule your next penetration test and check your disaster recovery plan is accurate. While also keeping an eye on your current threat levels, monitoring any vulnerabilities and sending out phishing simulation tests to your employees.
There’s only so much you can do single-handedly. But you know that you need to do them to prevent operational risks and to provide documented safeguards that could protect you from GDPR or other compliance risks if you were to suffer a data breach.
Rather than building all of this internally, many businesses bring in external cybersecurity support to strengthen what they already have. This creates better visibility, clearer reporting, and more confidence when you have to talk to your SLT about your cyber risks.
You need time to support strategic decision-making
A business’s IT system is now central to business performance, which means that you are under huge pressure to show how your system is working effectively.
You know that if you had the time, you could create clear roadmaps for when new investment will be needed, better identify any risk exposure, and write detailed reports that outline the impact of your IT budget.
With a co-managed IT solution, your business can work with external specialists who might open up your mind to the potential opportunities that exist outside of your sector. That external knowledge brings new ideas and opportunities to the partnership. It helps you understand how to maximise your IT budget while retaining unified visibility into all KPIs and expected metrics.
It gives your internal team more capacity when you need it.
Often, the immediate benefit of co-managing your IT support is having more resources and capacity when you need them. If you’re noticing that your routine tasks are becoming a substantial problem, having that extra resource from an external IT team means that potential issues can be nipped in the bud before they escalate.
You can ask your external team to provide additional IT helpdesk support during prolonged absences due to annual leave, which prevents workloads from building up. It’s about recognising that an external team’s extra pair of hands can help across all facets of your IT structure.
Outsourcing your IT to a co-managed partner allows you to think differently.
You know that you need additional IT capability to work better, but you need to find a way that genuinely resolves your problems rather than kicking the same can down the road.
If your internal IT team feels under pressure, it’s because your team structure hasn’t adapted to your changing business. Bringing in a co-managed IT solution by collaborating with an experienced IT partner will allow you to strengthen your existing team without exceeding your budget or losing control.
It’s time to recognise that what you’ve always done now needs to be changed.
If you are reviewing how your IT function is set up, planning a new project, or looking to reduce pressure on your team, consider where additional external IT support could fit.
The problem isn’t your team. It’s whether your structure has kept up.
