by Mark Shaw
The economic outlook for 2023 is the dreaded R word—Recession.
It`s here. We know the media and our government are not exactly forthcoming saying it’s here, but if you are a consumer you see the change. Technology is often the canary in the coal mine. When tech companies start cutting jobs, that is when we see things starting.
Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and just a few days ago Salesforce, recently cut their workforce. Additionally, the news was just released that the financial sector cuts are coming. These two major driving economic forces are the first to start the layoffs. Next up, all of us.
But as a small business owner there is some comfort in the fact that you can probably find some places to cut costs and save money. Ideally, you have probably been doing this all along as the inflation numbers have grown. When it comes to your technology, if you currently have an IT staff, even if it’s just one person, you can use some cost-effective, time-tested methods to meet your needs.
In today’s world you can outsource your information technology for often a fraction of the cost of retaining a fully loaded employee. Multiple studies shown that firms with 1-10 IT staff members have seen significant savings by outsourcing to an IT consulting firm. I have first-hand experience of the best ways this can and has been done.
First, outsourcing doesn’t have to mean firing people and leaving them without a job. We all put people first and finding a balance is ideal. So, you are now left wondering how do I save money, cut staff, and still get great technology support and advice? Well, there are a few ways to do this. Let’s talk about what using a third party company to manage your IT needs can do to dramatically improve your life.
No more loaded costs with 401k, healthcare, vacations.
No more worries about all the keys to the kingdom in one person’s hands.
No more fears over someone else scooping up your critical tech staff.
No myopic view of the world. Only seeing your business and no ability to benchmark what the best of the best are doing.
Imagine you now take those dollars spent on internal IT staff and move them to someone else. Someone who will handle all that and provide a team of engineers, customer service, and technology solutions for your business. You’ll no longer be worried about costs of staff or the dreaded “What happens if so and so is hit by a bus” scenarios.
You have a team who also has seen businesses just like yours, probably many of them. This group of skilled people can work daily to manage your environment, sometimes 24/7/365. Watching your technology around the clock requires a massive amount of resources, experience and expertise. No one person or even your small set of in-house staff could possibly do this.
To take this one step farther, many IT firms like my own are always looking for great tech talent. On more than one occasion, we have worked with a company to bring some of their team who otherwise might be laid off and put them to work for us. This keeps a friendly face your staff all knows and allows us to introduce new people as well. What a complete win-win-win scenario.
You get to reduce costs, the IT consulting firm gets to add a valuable person to the team and the employee you had to let go is now comfortably employed and is still a resource to you.
Take that, recession.