13 IT management skills you can outsource

As the owner or manager of a small to midsized company, have you ever sat back and wondered just how much of your time you are wasting on IT? Realizing that it’s taking up so much of your time, it’s stunting your company because you simply don’t have the time to focus on the vision and growth for your business?

It was fine to take on IT when you first started out, as you were a small and nimble concern but, let’s face it, now that your company has grown, IT has become much more of a mammoth task than you can afford to take on. What is the answer to this fundamental dilemma nearly every SME business owner or manager finds him/herself in?

Hiring an in-house IT technician

One option is to hire an in-house technician able to handle workstation and server support. You can either appoint a highly skilled technician who will have to be paid a high salary, or a low end technician at a lower rate with the intention to develop him or her in your business.  A downside that has to be considered is that in either event you will be without backup in the case of leave or absence and it is unlikely that you will find someone at a technician level that will add much to your business strategy.Is this the best approach for your business?

Step back for a moment and take into account that IT should be a business driver with the potential to give your business that differentiating factor setting it apart from its competitors.

Outsourcing IT management

An alternative to hiring the required IT skills, is to outsource  your IT management to an IT company that has all the specialities in-house to deal with

• user requests,
• server maintainability,
• monitoring,
• procurement,
• consulting and
• management of IT.

At the very lowest level, this way of dealing with the mammoth task of keeping IT efficiently running has proven very effective for many companies and has given rise to a whole industry of managed service providers like ourselves.

At a strategic level, we are moving ahead by including the bigger picture of how IT becomes relevant to a business – thanks to our many years of experience in the field, directly working with SMEs.

All the daily operational functionality is important, but nothing is fundamentally more important than the management of IT, as this is where the real value can be found. The recipe to more value is simple:

Free up time for the manager

If you as an owner/manager had more time what would you do? Work on more strategic goals, wouldn’t you? A quick calculation of what your time is worth will show you the true value of freeing you from the day to day management tasks involved in keeping a stable IT platform. Let’s say as a director you earn R50 000 per month and you spend 3 hours a minimum a week on IT related day to day issues. There are 52 weeks in a year with an average of 4.3 weeks in a month and 40 hours in a week. That would give you 172 hours per month at R290 per hour. 3 hours of your time spent on IT maintenance multiplied by 4.3 weeks gives you 13 hours a month or R3,770.

Instead of growing the company strategically in those 13 hours you’ve most likely only covered the operational aspect of IT.

If however, you outsource the management of IT to a company with specialised skills you will find your time available for exactly those strategic tasks. A company specialised in IT outsourcing like ourselves will

1. take a look at your IT budgets for any planned (and unplanned) IT expenditure and help you save money instead of having to deal with unexpected costs,
2. look at your capacity management demand and work out your planned growth over time enabling IT to be an agent for business growth rather than a stumbling block,
3. go out of their way to understand your business and applications used,
4. deal with 3rd party vendors and consultants to find better solutions, software or improvements,
5. perform IT asset management control,
6. deal with software licensing needs and find the optimal solution for your business needs,
7. filter out all those sales people chasing their monthly goals and present only relevant solutions related to your own business goals and needs,
8. take a look at all your IT expenditure and scrutinize it (and might for example even find that your original internet provider from years back is actually 3 times more expensive than new offerings today),
9. look at your IT policies that cover your legal business requirements and protect your interests and assets to make sure they are serving and not failing you,
10. Discuss your telephone system cost saving options by for example using VOIP allowing video conferencing and opening up new streams to collaboration, be more visible in the market and, of course, save actual calls costs,
11. perform a Business Impact Analysis as just one of the tools to make any IT risks apparent, help you decide on your appetite for risk and mitigate these IT risks by accommodating them in your IT budget,
12. find ways and means of accessing your data centrally available to all stakeholders when they are out of the office, allowing everyone to get to your data when and where you need it,
13. bring their specialist BI (business intelligence) tools and skills to the table to give the business directors and managers valuable insight into their data, thus opening up opportunities, bring out any constraints and see where the business should focus their efforts.

Naturally, this is only the tip of the iceberg of what is possible with a well staffed IT managed services provider. When choosing an outsourced IT service provider, look for skills that go beyond IT operational skills to maintain your business. Holistic IT management will give you a true competitive advantage in the market by turning IT into a tool that is relevant to the growth of your business.

As the owner or manager of a business, surrounding yourself with a team of professionals to manage your information technology needs will give you the edge – helping you focus on your business while continuing to ensure that IT adds value to your business.