Last Updated on September 25, 2023
When it comes to your small or medium business, it might seem like one person is enough to run your IT. Yet running with an IT team is a far better option. Here’s why.
Shared Knowledge
No matter where you go, people have different skills and abilities. This is true in other industries as well as IT — even in the same department, workers have different specialties and backgrounds. While one person can only know so much, a team is much stronger because they can collectively have more knowledge.
While a single IT person might get stuck on an issue and have to spend a long time finding the solution, a member of an IT team can simply call one of his colleagues and consult him on the issue. The latter takes a few minutes, while the former could take an hour or more. A wider pool of knowledge leads to faster fixing of issues and more efficient work.
Multiple Checks Against Error
People are bound to make mistakes sooner or later. With only a single IT person running the show, a mistake as small as a simple typo could go uncaught and cause you lots of issues. It’s not a matter of the person’s integrity, just a fact of being human.
With a squad of IT workers, this problem is greatly reduced. With several sets of eyes on work, issues will be caught much sooner than if one person was doing everything.
Personal Issues Affect You
It’s a fact no matter where you work: everyone needs vacation time and everyone is going to get sick occasionally. When this happens to your solo IT person, what will you do? You can’t afford to have him leave for a week in the summer on vacation — if a problem happens when he’s gone, you’re stuck in hot water.
In addition, a lot of IT people work for multiple clients. If your solo IT person is being pulled away by other clients often, it’s going to affect you. Being served only when it’s convenient for your IT person is not a fun way to be treated — with a team, you have assurance that you’ll always have someone available when you need help.
Processes and Procedures
A one person operation is very unlikely to have developed the required processes and procedures needed to run an efficient IT operation. Most of the time we find clients serviced by a single person to have substandard configurations and very rarely have IT best practices been applied let alone systematically improved.
Systematic and scheduled improvement is crucial to IT working well. One person operations just don’t have the resources to do this.
Protection if Someone Leaves
Picture this: your company has had the same IT person for fifteen years. All of a sudden, he decides he wants to start a new job, relocate, or even retire. This person is the single container of years of knowledge about your infrastructure and equipment — it could take a long time to restore that with someone new.
With a team of IT folks, you don’t run this risk. If one member of the team decided to leave, you still have several others who know you business and can provide support, meaning you don’t have any lapse in service from the loss of a member.
In addition, when the team hires someone new, the team members are equipped to bring the new hire up to speed. When a single IT person leaves, his replacement has to start from scratch.
Is an IT Team the Way to Go? You Decide
If your IT is still relying on a single point of contact, it’s time to make a change for the better. Take the first step by contacting our awesome IT team using the button below.