It's a calculation most small business owners make at some point: why pay for a managed IT service when things seem to be running just fine? But the problem with this approach is that when things do go wrong – a system fails, there’s a ransomware attack or a network outage – the cost of the lost productivity, inefficiency and time spent on recovery almost always dwarfs what professional IT support would have cost in the first place.
While in-house IT may appear cheaper upfront, it often lacks the resilience, redundancy and expertise needed to prevent failures and/or resolve failures, says Graeme Millar, MD at SevenC. “Many small business owners don’t fully appreciate the potential business impact if, for example, their teams are unable to send or receive e-mails,” he explains. What typically gets overlooked is that even a seemingly small disruption, like e-mails going down, can quickly ripple through the business, affecting everything from customer service and sales to productivity. And don’t underestimate how silence or slow responses can look like unprofessionalism and can erode customer trust, as Forrester Research shows.
Unreliable systems also promote shadow IT, Millar adds. If your teams aren’t willing to wait for a sluggish network or a frozen application, they will find their own workarounds, like using unauthorised tools and personal devices to get the job done. According to Gartner, not only does this create fragmented systems and increase security vulnerabilities, but it also creates visibility and compliance gaps. A separate study linked shadow IT to short-term productivity gains but to governance and co-ordination issues over time.
Reactive versus proactive
For Millar, when a business operates this way, its IT strategy is reactive rather than proactive. But when something critical goes down or stops working, the cost of calling out a professional in the middle of the night or panic buying hardware without looking for the best deal quickly adds up. “Unlike a managed service agreement, where costs are predictable, reactive IT support can be expensive. It feels cheaper right up until the moment it isn't, and by then, you’re already sitting with a massive bill you can’t afford.”
Often, SMEs without a proper IT function will assign IT to the team member who is most interested in it, says Millar. “But if this person is also in charge of your finance or HR department and there’s a technical issue, all of these other business functions your ‘IT guy’ is responsible for will suffer while they’re handling the IT-related issue.” And research on IT functions also shows that even in small organisations, IT requires ongoing focus, not a part-time resource allocation.
If you suspect that a lack of proper IT support is having a broader impact on your business, Millar recommends keeping a close eye on how your IT environment performs over about two weeks. “Make a note of every disruption related to IT. Even a small issue or gap must be documented to accurately illustrate where IT is most regularly letting the business down. This assessment will help you understand how your environment operates, so that you know where the issues lie. And then you can approach a managed service provider for IT support with a clear idea of what you do and don’t need,” he says.
The uncomfortable truth is that attempting to manage your IT in-house, without the proper skills, tools or capacity, often leads to systems that are less secure, less reliable and unable to keep pace with the competition, concludes Millar. “For SMEs, the question is no longer whether or not to invest in IT, but how to do so in a way that supports business resilience and growth.”
Share
