Managed IT Services

[Ukadder]

Hi All,

Due to my workload being too high I've been told I need to free-up some of my time and look at outsourced IT support.

Short story, I manage the IT for a group of companies I work for, between the group we have 80 desktop/laptops and 10 servers split across 4 different sites each with their own DC.

I'm looking for someone to take one or more of the sites in the group and manage the IT for it, so user issues, patching, upgrading etc.

However to get a figure to put into next years budget every IT managed company wants a face to face chat, all I want for now is a guestimate price per device and per server, and any general fee for supporting a domain environment.

Can anyone throw some figures at me? £30/device per month and £100/server per month is my current thinking. (I don't have time to go and get the quotes at this stage, so it needs to be more shoot from the hip)

 

[Ukadder]

That's an utterly trivial workload. Or should be. What else do you do? I've looked after more than that on 1 day per week and that was over a decade ago. Perhaps you are being asked the wrong question? Perhaps you should ask, "Why is all this taking up so much time? What can I do to reduce that? How much will that cost?"

Oh, and are you sure this isn't a precursor to firing you?

Hi Quartz,

Not sure I'd say 20% of a workload is utterly trivial, just ask anyone if they want to take of 20% more workload for nothing and see what reaction you get. The above takes up around 30% of my workload but the rest of my workload is where I'm wanted to do more and help grow the companies. Don't worry, I'm not in danger of being fired.

So based on supporting 80 users and 10 servers taking 8 hours a week, you would put the figure for support at £33,280/year (£80/ph used as the example)? Which is the same ballpark figure I'd come out at with my prices above.

 

[Ukadder]

I know the last place I worked outsourced some IT to a local company for a remote office, 4/5 laptops, network, 2 printers. £7k for a year's cover.

You'll find most charge by size and by the hour. £30 a device per month really isn't a lot, it's what, about 3.5 hours work at min wage which you can easily do on a system with issue.

Where are the locations you need covering? It may be cheaper to just employee someone to travel between the locations and do the work themselves, especially if a lot of issues can be remotely solved. I used to love remote work

Thanks for the info @AHarvey

2 of the locations are 2+ hours each way, the other is 1+. I'd say 90% is remote support with site visits required for new hardware mainly. £7K sounds a bit high, but doing the figures for one of the smaller companies it comes out only a bit lower. I'd thought about going for the employee route but due to the nature of the business we should scale up every now and then which is easier with outsourced support. Not sure whats easier to do, manage an employee or outsourced company.

 

[Ukadder]

Should get them to buy Macs - happier users, fewer issues...

This isn't a Mac fanboy post but was what IBM (of all people!) found from looking at the data from thousands of users.

Not sure the cost of 80 Macs would sit nicely with the budget for the next year, plus we run Sage200c on 35 devices which is not Mac supported. But I get what you're saying.

Thanks for the input the rest of you, seeing £34k/year for 30% of my workload does not really make sense, possibly employing a junior might however, we won't get anyone for £17K round here but for £25K inc overheads we would get close. Maybe investing in some investigation as @Quartz said might be the first step and seeing what benefits that brings.