More businesses than ever before are making adjustments toward a more digital business involving more complex and sophisticated technology, making more reliable and efficient IT of paramount importance. There are benefits to outsourcing your IT resources, but there are also times when you might consider hosting your infrastructure in-house. Let’s go over the benefits and how you can benefit from a mixture of in-house and outsourced IT.
Customization Options
When you host your own IT infrastructure in-house, you get exactly what you want, as you are the one building, hosting, and maintaining that infrastructure. You build it up from scratch to become exactly what you see it becoming. This level of customization can still be achieved through a third-party consultant and provider, however, so consider if you have the time and resources to dedicate to building and maintaining your own infrastructure before committing to the bit.
Compliance Benefits
Depending on your company’s industry and organizational structure, you might run into challenges as far as compliance goes based on where your data and applications are stored. Hosting in-house means that you know who has access to what at any given time, on both a physical and virtual level, thus giving you greater control over your adherence to compliance… at least, in theory. It’s also your responsibility to make sure these standards are adhered to.
More Security Options
You know what they say; your network, your decisions. If you want to lock down your infrastructure as tight as it can possibly get with robust and powerful security tools, you can certainly do so by hosting your own infrastructure. However, we would urge you to consult with a security professional to determine what is necessary for your organization and what is feasible from a budgetary and management standpoint. It might be well and good to implement comprehensive security systems, but only if you have the resources to manage them appropriately.
Notice a Pattern?
There are a lot of benefits to hosting your own IT infrastructure, but there is one glaring weakness: you are responsible for, well, a lot of stuff.
There are so many benefits that it is hard to pick just three, but most of the benefits only start to show themselves if you have a considerable IT budget—something which small businesses lack—and the technicians or expertise to take care of your technology. Of course, managed IT, or a combination of in-house and outsourced IT can be just as effective for small businesses, and it’s often the case that it’s the preferable option. Most small businesses don’t have the budget or the resources to take care of their own IT infrastructure, putting them in a difficult position.
North Central Technologies can be your best bet to take advantage of IT resources while maintaining operations. To learn more, call us at 978-798-6805.
