We have long left the era of traditional IT, an era where a small internal IT team was mostly capable of handling a variety of IT challenges. Internal IT alone is challenged to meet the expectations of this digital age. As companies continue their digital transformation journeys, IT departments must also transform to become partners aligned with their business and its needs. The middle market is evolving, and IT can no longer function as an add-on facility that runs independently from the business. Technology innovation will continue to accelerate, and the traditional “jack-of-all-trades” IT support model will no longer be enough.
 

Have You Outgrown Your Current IT Support Model?

IT departments are now the catalyst for innovation and the foundation for growth. If your IT strategy and support model are not aligned to business needs and outcomes, it’s not just a point of frustration, it’s a serious threat to the survival of your business and its ability to compete in this digital age. Let’s look at the top 3 signs that indicate it’s time for your organization to make a change.
 

1. Your IT Team is No Longer Creating Value

To succeed in today’s competitive market, you need to shed outdated processes, increase efficiency and create business value through technology. You’re eager to capitalize on cloud solutions, data analytics, and other technologies to grow your business, but also need to avoid disruption and manage cybersecurity risk.

It’s difficult to know where to begin. You’re looking to your IT team to help lead the charge, however, the complexity and pace of technology innovation and lack of a strategic vision has made it challenging for IT to envision a technology roadmap that aligns with business objectives and serves the needs of your internal and external customers alike. You’re realizing that your IT organization is not agile and isn’t recognizing the importance of accelerating progress.  

In order to tackle these realities and position IT as a business enabler, you need access to wide range of required specialized skillsets. These resources can deliver thought leadership and an overall IT strategy, execute upon the technology roadmap, and provide a robust and comprehensive support model to maximize IT investments, manage risk and deliver an exceptional experience for your end users. But, is hiring these IT specialists full time really the answer?
 

2. You Can’t Afford to Hire Any More In-House IT Support Staff

In the past, when the team was spread too thin, approval was given to hire more personnel to handle the load. For a while this approach worked adequately. Jump to today, and your IT team has never been more overextended.  You’ve continued to throw more money at the problem, but your return on IT investments just doesn’t seem to materialize.  You are still spending over half of your IT budget to keep the lights on rather than investing in solutions that will help optimize IT spend and create competitive advantages for the business. You know your IT department is overworked and the business is suffering because of it, but you can’t get the approvals to hire more staff to support the mounting demands – and for good reason!

It’s not financially feasible to staff a comprehensive team of IT experts full-time to fulfill every technical responsibility, such as service desk, user enablement, infrastructure management, cybersecurity, cloud, and the list goes on and on. Using median salaries to staff these resources (for a typical 300 user mid-market business), you’re looking at around $1.5 million annually – that’s a 200% budget increase for a typical organization!

Not to mention, not all full-time positions are created equal. For example, there is no question that every business should be focused on how to manage cybersecurity risk, but is this a full-time role at your organization? If not, you will still be paying a premium for a resource you only need a fraction of the time. For most mid-size organizations, limitations around staffing budgets are what is preventing their innovative initiatives from taking off.
 

3. Competition for High-Demand Resources means you’re Losing to Larger Organizations

Even if you could afford to hire the full IT support your organization requires, there’s another challenge inherent to this approach for mid-market organizations. Specialized skills are scarce in the marketplace, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for mid-market businesses to compete. When you do find the right candidate, it’s difficult to retain these high-demand resources when larger organizations are constantly luring them to better growth opportunities and more lucrative compensation and benefit packages.