What is the ideal size of an IT team for my company?
How does a Managed Service Provider work with me to provide this?
The size of an IT team varies significantly depending on the size of the company, the industry you work in and how your employees carry out their work.
Whether you're running a small startup or managing a large enterprise, the structure and roles within your IT team will need to adapt to meet the specific needs of the business.
Small business (1-50 employees)
The IT team needs to be versatile and agile for a small business, which is why an MSP is often the choice of small business owners.
Here are the key roles often incorporated into a small business:
- IT Generalist (or a Managed Service Provider):
- Responsibilities: Handling day-to-day IT operations, including network setup, troubleshooting, and user support.
- Skills needed: Broad knowledge of IT infrastructure, basic coding skills, and strong problem-solving abilities.
- Part-time IT consultant (or a Managed Service Provider):
- Responsibilities: Provide strategic guidance on major IT decisions, security policies, and significant upgrades, and implementation of digital transformation projects on cloud-based platforms.
- Skills needed: Deep expertise in IT strategy, cybersecurity, and infrastructure planning, knowledge of cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), cloud security, and data management.
By using an external company for your IT support, the focus stays on maintaining operational efficiency and leveraging outsourced or cloud services to fill in-house gaps in expertise.
Medium-sized business (51-250 employees)
As a business grows, the complexity of IT needs increases - and the support to help a business grow successfully is also required.
Key duties for a medium-sized business can include the following - although many medium-sized businesses do not have the IT support they may require:
- IT Manager:
- Responsibilities: Oversees the entire IT team, whether in-house or external, manages budgets and aligns IT strategy with business goals.
- Skills needed: Leadership, strategic planning, and project management.
- Network Administrator:
- Responsibilities: Ensures the stability and security of the company's network infrastructure.
- Skills needed: Network design, firewall management, and troubleshooting.
- Systems Administrator:
- Responsibilities: Manages servers and storage systems and ensures that all systems run smoothly.
- Skills needed: Server management, virtualisation, and backup solutions.
- Help Desk support:
- Responsibilities: Provide technical support to employees and resolve IT-related issues.
- Skills needed: Strong communication skills, problem-solving, and technical troubleshooting.
- Cybersecurity Specialist:
- Responsibilities: Protect the company’s data and IT systems from cyber threats.
- Skills needed: Knowledge of security protocols, threat analysis, and incident response.
The cost of employing these roles individually would be extremely high - more often than not, outside the budget of a medium-sized company looking to grow. This is why medium businesses usually have two or three job roles that encompass these responsibilities or turn to an MSP.
Large enterprise (250+ employees)
For large enterprises, the IT department is often a large, multi-layered team with highly specialised roles - alternatively, all of their IT support is outsourced to ensure all needs are met by a large external team.Here’s what an ideal IT team might look like in a large business:
- Chief Information Officer (CIO):
- Responsibilities: Sets the strategic direction for IT and aligns it with overall business objectives.
- Skills needed: Executive leadership, strategic thinking, and comprehensive IT knowledge.
- IT Directors/Managers:
- Responsibilities: Lead specific IT domains such as infrastructure, applications, and security.
- Skills Needed: Domain-specific expertise, management skills, and project coordination.
- Network Engineers:
- Responsibilities: Design and maintain complex network systems, ensuring optimal performance.
- Skills needed: Advanced network architecture, performance tuning, and security.
- Systems Engineers:
- Responsibilities: Oversee the organisation’s IT infrastructure, including servers and data centres.
- Skills needed: System integration, virtualisation, and disaster recovery planning.
- Database Administrators:
- Responsibilities: Manage databases to ensure data integrity, performance, and availability.
- Skills needed: Database management systems, SQL, and performance optimisation.
- Software Developers:
- Responsibilities: Develop and maintain custom applications to meet business needs.
- Skills needed: Programming languages, software development methodologies, and system integration.
- Help Desk team:
- Responsibilities: Provide technical support and troubleshooting for end-users.
- Skills needed: Technical expertise, customer service skills, and quick problem-solving.
- Cybersecurity team:
- Responsibilities: Protect the organisation from cyber threats and ensure compliance with regulations.
- Skills needed: Security protocols, threat mitigation, and compliance knowledge.
In large enterprises, the IT team must handle a diverse and complex array of technologies and processes. Specialist skills allow for in-depth expertise and efficient management of various IT domains.
Ideal IT team structure
The ideal IT team structure depends heavily on the size and specific needs of your company. Small businesses benefit from versatile generalists and strategic consultants, medium-sized businesses require a mix of specialised roles to handle growing complexity, and large enterprises need highly specialised experts to manage intricate systems and security measures.
By tailoring your IT team to your company's size, you can ensure that you have the right expertise and resources to support your business objectives and drive growth.
Our role in supporting you...
To find out more about the role of EPX in supporting companies of all sizes, please do get in touch with our team, who will be happy to discuss your needs.
