According to research firm Gartner1, a conservative estimate puts the cost of network outages at $42,000 per hour. At that rate, if a company experiences 175 hours of downtime annually, it would cost some $7 million.
With so much at stake, many companies choose to use a third-party maintenance provider to handle their IT needs, from desktop support to network maintenance. For advanced technology companies, however, there are several issues to consider when deciding whether to use a third-party maintenance provider.
Issues such as technical competency, cost pressures, and security clearance cause some organizations to hold off selecting a third-party maintenance company. With the proper selection, however, there are many advantages a third-party company can provide.
1. Scale
One of the biggest advantages of using a third-party provider is the economics of scale. For companies with many different locations, even something as basic as a hardware or software upgrade can be a logistical nightmare.
A third-party maintenance provider, on the other hand, often operates on a larger scale than all but the biggest of companies. This often includes staffing capabilities that go far beyond what the average company can access or steep discounts on hardware purchases. As a result, a maintenance provider can tackle product rollouts more efficiently than many companies handling it strictly in-house.
2. Improved Focus
Increased focus is another benefit of using a third-party provider. For many companies, an IT department is a drain on resources, both financial and intellectual. Even relatively small IT departments can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention the ongoing training necessary to help them stay current.
In contrast, by using a third-party maintenance provider, companies can stay focused on their core business, letting the provider handle their IT needs.
3. Expertise
Another significant advantage of a third-party maintenance provider is the wide range of expertise it can bring to the table. For companies that do maintain an internal IT department, it can be a challenge for those departments to have the necessary expertise to handle the ever-increasingly complex array of desktop, mobile, and cloud-based platforms that must be supported.
Third-party maintenance providers, on the other hand, work with various companies across virtually every industry. This gives such providers an almost unparalleled breadth of expertise, including certifications and clearances, that few individual companies can match.
4. Reduced Risks
As the study at the outset demonstrated, computer or network outages of any kind can be costly—sometimes catastrophically so. Many small to medium-sized companies lack the resources or staff to have an around-the-clock IT department. Should there be an outage during off-hours, the cost of such an incident can quickly escalate.
By choosing a third-party maintenance provider, however, even the smallest of companies can benefit from 24/7/365 support, significantly reducing the risk of an outage, not to mention the associated cost of one should it occur.
5. Cost
By combining economy of scale, reduced risk, improved expertise, and helping your organization stay focused on its core business, one of the single biggest benefits of a TPM provider is cost savings. In many cases, the combined benefits of using a TPM provider have resulted in organizations saving anywhere from 50 to 90 percent.2
For many organizations, venturing into the world of TPM providers can be a new and intimidating prospect. More often than not, however, the benefits far outweigh the risks, saving money and providing a level of expertise and quality far beyond what many companies can provide internally.
Sources:
1 http://www.networkworld.com/article/2329877/infrastructure-management/how-to-quantify-downtime.html
2 http://www.information-age.com/hillary-clinton-email-scandal-shines-light-specter-shadow-it-123459129/