One of my clients recently sold its wealth management firm to a national company. The IT director of the firm reached out to see if we could transfer information about their systems. The client also needed help with onboarding, since the parent company was located in a different city. We previously shared some information with the buyer during the due diligence process, and its director commented on our capabilities. Since it had experienced regulatory pressure to put security and disaster recovery systems in place, we reviewed our design with the buyer. The IT director commented that, of the 13 firms his company acquired, we had the most comprehensive and compliant design he'd seen. Soon after, we discussed our ability to support the firm's Houston office long-term, thereby saving the cost of travel or an additional staff member. He shared that its IT staff was made up of five people and supported 230 people in eight states. I was amazed because that represents a 46:1 ratio of techs to users.
At OMNIPOTECH, we support over 3,000 users in 15 states and 13 countries with only eight technical staff members -- a 375:1 ratio. He described his team's capabilities, and I was able to mentally calculate their entire IT budget, including payroll, benefits, and all other licensing and infrastructure costs. I shared that number with him, and he responded, "That's about right."
As I write this article, the world is in lockdown due to COVID-19 and over 25 million Americans have filed for unemployment. Due to the financial circumstances, firms have reduced staff, including internal IT support. This week, we landed a Georgia-based client of approximately 60 people that terminated its single IT staff person for cause. When a firm has an internal IT employee, it only gets the employee. In addition to the total cost of the employee, the firm still has to purchase a phone system, backup and disaster recovery equipment, data-center storage, servers, computers, an email system, and anti-spam and other security software, plus all the licensing. The firm also has to cope with the employee taking PTO or simply leaving for another job.
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 because the person only sees one set of problems. This Georgia firm had a very complex environment with a storage area network, VMware and almost two dozen servers. Its former IT person had very limited skills, so he also had a local firm providing support to him. With larger companies, the cost of hiring an internal IT person 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 firm, including business continuity and a geographically separated off-site capability to protect it from hurricanes. We vastly increased the firm's security by adding four additional layers to reduce its threat footprint. The firm now has a centralized ticketing system and a "help desk" that never takes a vacation. Its systems have real-time monitoring and proactive maintenance that occurs on schedule. We also told the client about free services that its Office 365 subscription contained to make emailing safer. (The firm didn't know these existed.) We pointed out that the client could combine the telephone system with those of its sister companies to reduce telecommunication costs for all, while also increasing uptime capabilities. Plus, datacenter architects now attend their strategic planning meetings to guide them as the business changes. All services, hardware, licensing and consulting cost about the same as what the firm was paying one IT support person.
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.
