Hybrid IT Support - The Best of Both Worlds for Empowering Distributed Teams
Hybrid IT teams blend internal and external tech support, enhancing expertise, security, cost-efficiency, and customer service.
The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed how we work. With remote work becoming the norm, companies can no longer rely on in-house IT teams that are only available during standard business hours. Employees are now working from home at all hours of the day and need IT support that matches this new normal.
Traditional 9-to-5 IT teams struggle to provide the around-the-clock support that dispersed workforces require. Without 24/7 assistance, minor tech issues can quickly snowball into major productivity roadblocks. But scaling an internal team to provide nonstop coverage is expensive, difficult to staff, and often unnecessary for average business needs.
This is where hybrid IT support comes in. By combining in-house staff with external providers, companies can cost-effectively deliver always-on service. Internal teams handle routine tasks during core business hours. After hours and on weekends, they hand off support to an external managed services provider (MSP) that specializes in delivering seamless 24/7 assistance.
The hybrid model gives companies the best of both worlds: leverage internal staff’s business knowledge while gaining access to an MSP’s economies of scale and technical expertise. With hybrid support, you can empower employees to work productively anytime, anywhere while optimizing IT costs. It's an increasingly essential strategy for managing dispersed, digitally-driven teams.
What is Hybrid IT Support?
A hybrid IT support model combines the best of both in-house and outsourced IT support teams. With a hybrid approach, your business keeps crucial IT functions in-house while partnering with a managed services provider (MSP) to handle other key areas of your IT operations and infrastructure.
The in-house team continues to handle tasks that relate to business strategy, require direct oversight, and involve proprietary systems and data. The MSP delivers capabilities like 24/7 monitoring, technical support, security, maintenance, and cloud services. This division of labor allows your in-house staff to focus on high-value initiatives while the MSP ensures basic IT needs are consistently met.
In a hybrid model, the MSP acts as a seamless extension of your in-house IT department. The combined strengths of both teams are leveraged to get the best of both worlds—internal expertise and control plus expanded capabilities and experience. This approach provides the cost efficiency and reliability of outsourcing without losing the institutional knowledge of in-house staff.
The Best of Both Worlds
In the past, companies typically relied on either fully in-house IT teams or fully outsourced managed IT services. Both approaches have their own pros and cons:
In-house IT teams
Deep knowledge of company systems and needs
More control over IT strategy and priorities
Faster on-site response time
Limited skillsets and capacities
Outsourced IT services
Broader expertise across many technologies
Access to enterprise-level tools and infrastructure
24/7 monitoring and support
Improved cost predictability
Lack of institutional knowledge of client
With a hybrid model, you don't have to choose between these two extremes. You can build an IT environment that brings together the best of both worlds. Your in-house team handles tasks that require internal knowledge and on-site work. Outsourced services fill in skillset gaps, take on routine tasks, and provide always-on support.
The hybrid approach gives you flexibility to customize your IT capabilities. You can strike the right balance of leveraging external services while still retaining control over your environment. This opens up new possibilities to strengthen your IT operations and support strategic priorities.
Key Benefits of Hybrid IT Support
With hybrid IT support, you get the best of both worlds - leveraging the expertise and capabilities of an external provider while retaining control over strategic IT decisions. Here are some of the key benefits hybrid IT support offers:
24/7 monitoring and support: MSPs can provide around-the-clock monitoring and support for your systems. So even when your in-house team is off work, you'll have experienced techs keeping an eye on things. This ensures critical issues don't go unnoticed.
Access to specialized expertise: MSPs have experience across a wide variety of technologies, systems, and IT domains. They can quickly tap into niche expertise as needed to solve tricky issues without you having to staff those skills in-house full time.
Enhanced security: MSPs regularly deal with security threats across many clients. So they bring broad experience and advanced tools for identifying and addressing vulnerabilities that can complement your internal security efforts.
Cost savings: By leveraging an MSP for day-to-day maintenance and support tasks, you avoid the overhead of hiring additional in-house staff. MSPs can also provide economies of scale around licensing and tooling.
The right MSP partner helps strengthen your existing IT investments while providing flexible skills and capacity. This empowers your in-house team to focus on high-value strategic efforts.
Gain Access to More Expertise
Companies of all sizes have skill gaps when it comes to in-house IT support. There's simply too much for a small team to be experts in. The rapid pace of technological change makes that even more difficult over time. With a hybrid setup, you get to strategically supplement your team's skills.
Need a security audit? Your managed services partner likely has certified experts on staff. How about a phone system upgrade project? They've likely done it countless times before. You instantly gain access to specialized skills and institutional knowledge that would take years to build yourself.
The hybrid model gives you flexibility. In-house staff can stay focused on high leverage projects tailored to your business. Routine tasks and niche expertise is available on-demand from your partner. Together, a well-integrated team can provide better service and value than either could alone.
Achieve Better Network Security
With more employees working remotely, organizations face increased pressure to monitor and safeguard workers and devices outside the office network perimeter. This is an area where a hybrid IT model really shines.
Managed service providers have extensive experience managing security across a diverse array of customer environments. They can leverage the cloud to seamlessly extend your on-premises security policies to remote employees, ensuring they have the same level of protection at home as they do in the office.
With a hybrid approach, your IT team has access to a wider range of security solutions and expertise to identify, prevent, and address threats. MSPs use advanced tools to monitor the network, endpoints, cloud applications and more - alerting your team to suspicious activity right away. Some even offer specialized security services like compliance audits, penetration testing, and 24/7 threat monitoring.
By partnering with a managed service provider, you get the benefit of enterprise-grade security protection and expertise, without the high cost of building an in-house security team. This allows your internal IT staff to focus on your company's specific business needs and core applications.
The hybrid model provides the best of both worlds - leveraging MSP security skills and solutions to lock down the extended network, while enabling your team to maintain tight control over sensitive on-premises systems and data. Better security means less downtime from attacks, and peace of mind for both IT staff and end users.
Lower Operational Costs
Outsourcing IT support through an MSP can lead to significant cost savings for your business. Rather than hiring, training and managing a full in-house IT support team, you can pay an MSP a monthly fee to handle those services. This allows you to scale your IT support up or down as needed, without taking on expensive long-term staffing costs.
MSPs have expertise across a wide range of IT areas, so you avoid having to hire specialists for different needs. They also utilize automation and advanced management tools to work more efficiently. These efficiencies translate into lower hourly rates that can reduce your IT support costs by 30% or more compared to hiring in-house staff.
By partnering with an MSP, you also minimize the costs of technical training, hardware purchases and IT infrastructure maintenance. Your in-house team can focus on innovation and other high-value projects while the MSP takes care of day-to-day support tasks in a cost-effective manner. This frees up your budget to invest in growing your business.
Overall, outsourcing to an MSP gives you enterprise-level IT support at a predictable, affordable monthly price. That allows you to control your IT costs while benefiting from world-class tech support, 24/7 monitoring and access to the latest solutions. The hybrid model delivers the best of both worlds for your budget.
Reduce Downtime with a Hybrid Model
A key benefit of a hybrid IT support model is reducing costly downtime for your business. With in-house staff focused on core support hours and an MSP providing 24/7 monitoring and emergency support, you get the best of both worlds.
The MSP can monitor systems, receive alerts, and respond to issues outside regular business hours, ensuring problems don't go unnoticed until employees return to work. Rather than coming in to chaos first thing in the morning, your in-house team is freed up to focus on strategic initiatives that will move the business forward.
In addition, MSPs have experienced technical staff well-versed in identifying and resolving a wide range of IT problems. They have access to knowledge bases, technical resources, and advanced tools that can cut downtime shorter. Quick analysis and resolution means minimal disruption.
With an MSP providing after-hours support, weekends, holidays, and more, your business keeps running smoothly. Employees can stay productive and customers can still access systems and data as needed. By partnering with an MSP, you ensure your business continues operating 24/7.
Upgrade Faster and More Seamlessly
With a hybrid support model, you can execute technology upgrades and migrations faster and with less disruption. Often, major upgrades get deprioritized because IT teams are slammed handling day-to-day support tickets and critical issues. But the hybrid model provides capacity for your in-house team to keep the lights on, while the MSP executes projects.
For example, let's say you wanted to roll out a new cloud-based phone system, migrate email to the cloud, or upgrade your network switches. These projects require focused attention and can't just happen on nights and weekends. With the hybrid setup, your outsourced team takes point on delivering the upgrade smoothly and on-time. Your staff stays focused on their core responsibility of supporting users.
The MSP has experience and expertise to plan and execute these complex technology projects. And with their wider view across clients, they know how to iron out implementation wrinkles. Collaboration is key: your internal IT sets requirements and remains involved, while the MSP handles the heavy lifting.
Upgrading major systems is disruptive, but done right it should be minimally disruptive to your business. With the hybrid service delivery model, you can upgrade faster by leveraging the strengths of both teams. Your business gains agility: you can take advantage of new technologies and capabilities more readily when upgrades aren't delayed.
Is Hybrid IT Support Right for You?
Hybrid IT support offers the best of both worlds - keeping critical services in-house while leveraging the expertise and cost savings of an outsourced provider. Here's a quick recap of the key benefits hybrid support can offer your business:
Access More Expertise - Gain skills and knowledge from IT specialists to identify issues quickly and keep your technology current.
Enhanced Security - Manage security for on-premise and remote workers through cloud-based solutions.
Lower Costs - Outsource day-to-day tasks and monitoring for budget-friendly IT support.
Less Downtime - Prevent problems proactively and perform fixes 24/7 with an outsourced help desk.
Faster Upgrades - Free up in-house staff to focus on daily tasks while outsourcing executes upgrades seamlessly.
If you need comprehensive IT support, flexible security, and expertise on demand, hybrid support can help drive your business forward. Consider if it may be the right fit to help your team deliver more value.
Smart Team Accelerator is the ideal solution for businesses looking to embrace the hybrid IT support model. By offering a blend of in-house expertise and outsourced efficiency, we provide a comprehensive, cost-effective approach to IT support. Our team of experts complements your existing IT infrastructure with 24/7 monitoring, advanced security solutions, specialized expertise, and efficient handling of routine maintenance tasks. This allows your in-house team to concentrate on strategic initiatives and high-value projects. With Smart Teams Accelerator, you gain the flexibility to scale your IT support as needed, ensuring that your technological needs are met swiftly and seamlessly, anytime and anywhere. Embrace the future of IT support with DBSL Smart Team, where we combine the best of both worlds to empower your distributed teams and drive your business forward.