Outsourced IT vs In-House: The Wage Inflation Problem

In today’s uncertain economic times, companies are faced with the growing challenge of continually maintaining their bottom line. When it comes to covering technology needs,  businesses typically debate between finding an outsourced IT solution or hiring an in-house team of experts. It can be difficult to make the right decision. 

As business development manager at Intrust, I see these businesses also grappling with “wage inflation,” the increase in wages paid to workers, typically due to a strong demand for labor and a limited supply of available qualified workers. It’s becoming increasingly an issue for small to midsize businesses and organizations. 

At Intrust IT, we want to explore this conundrum to better understand the decision-making process and to potentially settle the debate between outsourced IT and in-house. 

Economic Trends

I recently attended the University of Cincinnati’s Goering Center program on Exploring the 2023 Economic Landscape. Here are some of my takeaways and how they might affect your decision on outsourced IT, hiring an in-house team, or a hybrid model of co-management.

Wage inflation is going to be with us for the foreseeable future, and so is inflation. The odds are about 60/40 that we’ll be in a recession this year. Across the board, businesses and organizations are having a tough time getting qualified workers to join their team.

From this general trend, let’s shift to IT specifically: The average salary range is about $60,000 for an IT person in 2022, according to PayScale.com. Intrust’s outsourcing packages start between $350 and $2,500 a month. So clearly, it’s more cost-effective for us to manage or co-manage your IT environment. 

Beyond the budget, another big benefit is that by outsourcing, you’ll have access to our team of 70 experts. We have a deep bench of engineers who specialize in various technologies, like cybersecurity, Microsoft 365, and cloud computing. You can’t get all that knowledge from one in-house person. 

Even if you currently have a robust internal IT team, there’s still a strong case for outsourcing. Instead of adding another member to the team, you can assign any responsibilities that position would have to us. It gives you a buffer in staffing and takes away some of the daily tasks from the internal IT department. Instead, they can focus on those big strategic projects with increased flexibility.

Outsourced IT and More

The message at the economic discussion is that wage inflation is here for the foreseeable future. Dealing with it may mean you’ll have to pay people more, which is tough in this environment currently, but if you want good, talented people it could be a requirement.

The current conditions are causing people to wonder about outsourcing other operational functions. It may be worth investigating what’s available in terms of partners for specific functions in your business. We see our clients outsourcing HR, marketing and even engineering. Many businesses already outsource their accounting and legal work. 

No matter the specialty, as you compare providers, it’s best to look for an IT partner you can trust to have your business’s best interests at heart, not just a vendor. At Intrust, we can take care of the strategic and tactical tasks and hold full accountability for your organization’s IT environment.

As you consider your options, here’s a breakdown of benefits.  

Outsourced IT Benefits vs In-House IT Benefits

There are two major pros to hiring in-house IT:

• They are physically located in the office during business hours (outside of sick leave or vacation time).
• They exclusively work on your environment and know it extremely well.

While these benefits are great, in general, outsourced IT has:

• Better value for your money.
• Access to a diverse range of expertise and experience.
• Full coverage 24/7/365 without risk of burnout.
• Use of best-in-class tools and processes, including advanced cybersecurity protection of a security operations center
• Automatic scaling as your user count changes, whether due to growth or contraction.
• Incentives for the MSP to operate as efficiently as possible.

These benefits give significant advantages to businesses of all sizes, allowing them to focus on their core operations while leaving their IT needs to the experts. 

Intrust’s Service Packages

As you compare IT providers, you will most likely see varying levels of service packages. Our packages include: 

BasicCare: A reactive service model best for organizations with a part-time IT support person with fewer than 20 computer users and no servers.  Includes a subset of our IT management tools to patch endpoints, 24/7/365 cybersecurity protection and an hour of requested support each month. 

CompleteCare:  Shared responsibility model with proactive managed IT services for organizations with 10 to 100 computer users and no internal IT team. Includes strategic business reviews, 24/7/365 cybersecurity protection and unlimited support to ensure a stable and secure IT environment. 

EnterpriseCare: A monthly retainer service model intended for organizations that have at least one dedicated IT person on staff and more than 100 computer users. We complement the in-house IT team with our technical knowledge and dedicated resources to handle ongoing defined tasks or projects. All of our support tools, including our 24/7/365 cybersecurity protection, can be deployed if desired.

Next Steps

Wage inflation is here to stay, but that doesn’t mean it should affect your bottom line. By partnering with a trusted managed service provider, you can leverage the knowledge and experience of an experienced IT team at a lower cost. 

You gain access to highly skilled technicians and the combined expertise of a larger team that remains current with the latest technologies and cybersecurity threats, thanks to their work with other similar businesses and organizations.

Intrust IT is an employee-owned business. This results in a reliable service workforce and an experienced technical team to support our Greater Cincinnati and Dayton clients with no long-term contracts.

If you’d like to explore our IT service packages or have any questions about outsourced IT, contact us or book a meeting with one of our experts.