Any growing business will, at one point or another, begin to contemplate the ways in which having its own internal IT department, whether that be a single person or whole team, may benefit the business.
There are a number of factors that may drive this decision: the growing cost of technology and the associated services; the increasing demand of users; the need to bring the company’s long-term IT strategy in line with the wider business strategy and the criticality of infrastructure and applications, presenting the need for trusted guidance as to the business’s future technological investments. These factors are broad in range and, when recruiting for an internal IT person, many companies assume that one person will satiate all of these requirements within their role. This could not be further from the reality.
Why isn’t this the case?
Any one internal IT person would have to don many hats in order to meet the demands of every user and of each facet of the business. Because of this, it’s important to consider the competing expectations of the various business departments when recruiting for an internal IT resource.
An executive will expect…
- High-level advice to the board with regards to the long-term strategic direction of the IT department.
- The management and support of complex infrastructures and multiple suppliers.
- The acceptance of total accountability for the technology’s performance and security.
- The provision of 24/7 support to senior users.
The various business departments will expect…
- Business application support and advice.
- The acceptance of accountability for all performance that affects their department.
The end-user will expect…
- User assurances and general advice and support for day-to-day queries for user-level issues, password changes, etc.
- The management of printers and peripherals.
- Hands-on engineering work, such as crawling under desks and plugging cables.
The supplier will expect…
- A skilled buyer and decision maker.
What ends up happening instead?
The budget for an internal IT resource is often based on efficiencies measured against the existing cost of support and/or the anticipated cost for increased service levels. This determines the level at which the business recruits and, almost without fail, presents a dichotomy. A “tech-only” recruit will deal with low-level problems but will not feel comfortable presenting to the board on long-term strategic direction. Similarly, a strategic head will not be happy crawling under desks to plug cables. More often than not, this leads to compromise; an IT manager who can manage the technology and keep some of the people happy some of the time. Ultimately, the brief is far too wide to be performed successfully by one person.
What is the solution?
As a rule, an internal IT department should be a team, not an individual. Of course, small companies will likely not have the budget to recruit an entire team of people. This is where the argument for outsourcing is made. By outsourcing the IT function, a company has access to an entire team, ranging from strategic planners to helpdesk operatives, which will be far better able to satisfy the broad range of requirements and expectations from within the various business departments.
EPX Technical Services provides a fully managed, proactive service to assist end-users, maintain the core network and provide useful reports to management, all under one roof. To find out more, contact EPX on 01785 878 311, or email info@epx.co.uk.
