As the world emerges from a pandemic, we continue to face tremendous supply chain disruptions, a war in Ukraine, oil at its highest level in 14 years and the greatest rate of inflation in 40 years.
Some firms are struggling with employees returning to the office after almost two years of working from home. Employees have realized a shift that allows a greater work-life blend versus the struggle many people previously had with work-life balance. Inflexible employers are losing good employees to more money and a greater overall lifestyle that allows working from home.
We've had clients with internal IT staff members that had a ratio of users to IT support personnel as low as 3:1, with the typical average being about 45:1. In a world of increasing salaries, especially for IT people, it is hard to keep these people employed at smaller firms. These IT people have good working knowledge of their company, but their overall IT knowledge declines yearly because they have limited exposure to new IT processes, tools and technologies, yet their payroll and benefits costs continue to increase. At OMNIPOTECH, our clients have over 9,000 employees located in 15 states and 13 countries, which we support with only 13 technical staff members — a 642:1 ratio.
Recently, we landed a small Texas bank as a client that had about 48 people and two internal IT staff members spread across five locations. When a firm has internal IT staff, it only gets the employee. In addition to the total cost of the employee, the firm still has to purchase internet and phone circuits, a phone system, backup and disaster recovery, storage, servers, computers, an email system, and security software, plus all the licensing to operate the business and comply with regulations. The firm also has to cope with an employee taking PTO or simply leaving for another job, plus continue to provide education to the employee so his or her skillset is current.
A firm of under 100 people rarely has the budget to track IT assets, perform IT audits regularly, or investigate new operational capabilities to increase productivity and reduce operational costs. The internal IT person can also be limited by his or her experience, having a very myopic view of the industry and IT because that person only sees one set of relatively static problems. This banking client has a very complex environment with intense regulatory IT requirements. The bank allowed us to hire one of the internal IT staff, reducing its overall costs while simultaneously increasing the overall support team via outsourcing. With larger companies, the cost of hiring an internal IT person who is capable of managing all of the infrastructure without assistance from consultants is typically more than the cost of outsourcing.
We were able to create a services plan for the bank, including business continuity and a geographically separated off-site disaster recovery capability to protect it from hurricanes. We vastly increased its security by adding four additional layers to reduce its threat footprint. The firm now has a centralized ticketing system and a help desk team that never takes a vacation. Its systems have real-time monitoring with proactive maintenance that occurs on schedule. We are completing a centralized datacenter migration project that began in late 2019, but was never completed. We upgraded old systems and consolidated servers' roles, further reducing operating costs. We will complete this project in under five months while adding a business continuity layer. Plus, datacenter architects now attend their strategic planning meetings to guide them as the business changes and ensure regulatory compliance. All services, hardware, licensing and consulting costs are less than what the bank paid for those same items, plus the cost of its internal IT staff.
If your business needs to cut costs, investigate a potential acquisition target, reduce your security vulnerability or increase your resiliency, you should consider outsourcing your IT services. Simply perform a Google search of "IT support" in your area and interview the top five to seven companies, because skills and pricing will vary widely.
For more information, visit www.omnipotech.com or call (281) 768-4308.
