In-house IT Support VS managed IT services

Today we’re looking at in-house IT support vs outsourced managed IT services – which is better and what are they? In this blog, we’ll seek to answer these questions and hopefully stop some common misconceptions about managed IT services.

Are you interested in outsourcing your IT? ECS can help – give us a call on 01553 692727 to find out how we can help you!

What are in-house IT support and managed IT services?

In-house IT support

In-house IT support is where a business manages all of its IT internally. This means hiring an IT team or a sole IT engineer to take charge of all the systems, software, hardware, purchasing, and security. This can be costly and time-consuming.

Managed IT services

Managed IT services are where a business hires a third party (like ECS) to maintain their IT services, systems, software, hardware, and security, instead of having these things managed by an internal team or employee. This allows you to utilise a larger team with wider experience than if you were hiring one or two people in-house.

What are some common misconceptions about managed IT services?

‘IT Managed Services are really impersonal!’

Some managed service providers (MSPs) outsource their call centres to other countries and are so large that you never talk to the same person twice – not ECS. Our customers get to know our engineers by name, and it doesn’t take long to become acquainted with the whole team! Our business support team will become an extension of your team.

‘You get trapped into a long contract’

Again, a large number of MSPs will trap you in 1, 2, even 3-year long contracts making it difficult to make any major changes or to grow. ECS only have 30-day contracts meaning each month you can alter the number of users and services to best suit your business. And if you’re not happy? You’re free to leave. We call it risk-free IT.

‘They’re slow to respond!’

At ECS we have service level agreements (SLAs). This means we have an agreed time frame to respond in – so you know you won’t be waiting around for us to reply!

What are the benefits of managed IT service vs in house IT support?

Reducing your IT and hiring costs

Outsourcing your IT to a managed service provider means you don’t need to pay people internally to maintain your systems, making it far more cost-effective in the long term.

Freeing up your team

By outsourcing your IT to an MSP, it will be the MSP’s team that are spending the time solving your issues – and multiple people from your team can call at the same time. It will be quicker to get them back up and running, and whoever is currently fixing minor IT problems in-house can go back to working on more important areas of your business.

Proactive monitoring

With an MSP, the functioning of your PCs, laptops, and servers will be monitored constantly – no more surprise issues.
Your managed IT service provider can check if your drives are working, if your hardware is up to date, and pre-warn you if they think something in your PC or server is about to fail – preventing downtime and getting you back up to full functionality quickly.

Expertise

You’ll have access to a whole team of experienced and qualified IT engineers who spend all day helping businesses like yours perfect their IT systems and solve problems. Teams like our business support team, have decades of years assisting businesses like yours to achieve their best.
Hiring this level of support in-house is extremely costly and time-consuming, especially if you don’t have enough IT issues to keep them busy!

Planning and Audits

Managed IT service providers can help you pre-plan your IT expenses up to 18 months in advance. With detailed audits and advice, we can help you decide where you should be investing in your IT infrastructure and making sure it can fit within your ideal timeframe.

One point of contact

No longer do you have to maintain your supplier for Microsoft and anti-virus and where you buy hardware and anything else IT related. MSPs can supply software, hardware, and anything else IT-related you may need. In some cases, they may even interface with a third-party software supplier on your behalf if you are facing issues, as part of their support package.

Availability

Working with a managed service provider means there will be a larger team available for your team to contact when they run into issues, meaning less waiting around for a solution and more productivity.
As previously mentioned, service level agreements (SLAs) mean that you will have a contract time frame for when your MSPs need to reply – meaning we will always be ready and available to help in these time frames.

Credible product recommendations

MSPs are also always up to date on new products and changes to your current products, meaning they can advise you on what will be best suited to your needs. Our engineers are always training so they can help you keep up to date on best practices, the newest system upgrades, and cyber security.