Technology and business have become deeply intertwined. Modern organizations use digital solutions to deliver products and services to customers, support a variety of different work models, capture and analyze vast quantities of data, and so much more.
But despite the growing importance of technology, the role of the traditional IT department is becoming less and less relevant. Let’s explain how the rapid evolution of the technology industry has transformed the IT support needs of small and medium-sized businesses, and how the IT department needs to evolve as well to meet them.
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No Room for the Traditional IT Department
The traditional IT department emerged to support the early adopters of digital business tools and the information technology infrastructure behind them.
Back then, sending and receiving email messages, for example, meant setting up an in-house email server, configuring employees’ computers to communicate with it, and then keeping everything updated and well-maintained to prevent day-to-day issues from occurring.
Any hardware or software problems affecting the email server or the computers connected to it were up to the IT department to fix. Organizations whose daily business operations were seldom affected by IT outages weren’t lucky—they just employed skilled professionals who could repair any broken component the same way a skilled surgeon can perform life-saving surgery.
However, today’s SMBs have largely moved away from in-house servers and IT infrastructure in general. According to the latest annual Flexera State of the Cloud Report, 63 percent of SMB workloads and 62 percent of SMB data will reside in a public cloud within the next year.
In other words, more and more companies are choosing digital business tools that run on servers owned and, most importantly, maintained by someone else, such as Microsoft or Google. What’s more, the same tools are much more user-friendly than the tools early IT employees were supporting two decades ago. This leaves less and less room for the traditional IT department.
Reimagining the IT Department
While the idea of radically reimagining the IT department can be anxiety-inducing, that’s exactly what’s necessary for it to be an indispensable asset again, instead of being a bottomless pit for financial resources.
What would a reimagined IT department look like? Increasingly many SMBs believe that it should be external, outsourced to a managed service provider (MSP) like us at OSIbeyond. Such SMBs are attracted to benefits like:
- Quicker resolution of IT-related problems with 24/7 support
- Access to a wide portfolio of services (IT support, cloud solutions, cybersecurity, and more)
- Lower overhead costs
- Better business focus
- Easy to scale up or down based on current needs
- Improved compliance with data protection regulations
- A single point of contact for third parties
The best MSPs use their vast experience and expertise to securely and cost-effectively empower their customers with technologies that make them more competitive and efficient, instead of simply keeping the wheel turning as many small in-house IT departments do.
Indeed, the ability to take advantage of comprehensive IT solutions is now essential for business survival, and the increasing demand for MSPs reflects this. According to Research Dive, the global managed services market is estimated to garner a revenue of $410,707.9 million by 2027, and rise at a CAGR of 11.1 percent in the forecast period from 2020 to 2027.
It’s safe to say that those who reimagine their IT department before everyone else does will be in the best position to reap the rewards, while those who continue spending money on outdated IT support models and archaic infrastructures that go hand-in-hand with them will likely fall behind.
Summary about Future of IT Department
The role of technology in business has changed dramatically in the last two decades alone, and the same can be said about the role of the IT department. Modern organizations don’t need in-house IT staff just to build a digital engine to power their business processes because they can choose between countless different ready-made engines with maintenance as part of the service agreement.
What they really need then is an experienced provider of IT services that can help them securely and cost-effectively leverage the available solutions to drive business growth and achieve competitive advantage, and that’s where MSP like us at OSIbeyond come in. Contact us and let us become your new IT department.