Case Study: Hiring an IT Administrator vs. Hiring an IT Outsourcing Company

We had been asked in the past by Company “X” to come out and do a full review on their network in preparation for a support agreement with them. We fullfilled the request and performed a full analysis. Instead of choosing to outsource functions of their IT department to Beringer (us), they in turn chose to hire an in-house network professional. The “new employee” was knowledgeable in higher-end server duties such as configuring and supporting VMWARE and Exchange DAG environments, however he was not well-versed in help desk type roles or typical desktop support functions. He began a migration of their network and pushed all helpdesk requests off during this time amassing a large backlog of support issues. He also was in the process of performing network and server role changes and was in the process of many physical to virtual server migrations but never completed the project.

After 6 months of employment, the new employee gave a very abrupt notice and left the company within four days. Left in his wake was a lack of company-wide knowledge about the changes he had made and the administrative control of the servers and network environment.

Company “X” was in complete disarray. They were scrambling to recover information about their own network infrastructure. They again came to Beringer for assistance and we promptly jumped into action and gained a quick familiarity with their network to reclaim it. We added hands to the project to help provide the necessary support to the end-users they had been lacking.

Company “X” praised us for this level of support and management capability and that it was done in such short order. My personal interaction with the “new employee” was that he was not forthcoming with the pertinent information to Company “X” management. I had gained a working relationship with him to gain enough information that we could access some of the mission critical systems and make the changes. We worked strong and got Company “X” back their entire infrastructure and administration roles again.

Ironically, Company “X” still chose to not hire us as their outsourced IT department after we resurrected their environment. Based on their experiences, and our experiences, it was hard to understand their decision.

This is a very real world and damaging problem that does exist in the IT field and in many small businesses today. There are many companies that put all of their trust and their IT Management into one individual. This leaves that one individual to manage their entire enviroment and most often the individual does not have their skills polished, is not well-rounded, and does not contain the time necessary to handle the needs of the company.

IT Outsourcing solves this problem by allowing your networks to be managed by a team that knows your network. A team that contains expanded expertise and technical knowledge spread across many individuals. Lastly, a team approach would have more time to answer technical issues and/or improvements than a single individual could possess.