Managed IT Services vs In-House IT: How To Choose the Right One for Your Business
- marketing39902
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 8 hours ago
IT is becoming increasingly important to day-to-day business operations; it’s what smart and growing businesses are now beginning to prioritise.
The decision businesses are making is no longer: “do we need IT support?”
It is now: “What form of IT support is now best for our business?”
The three common models that we see businesses choose between are: In-house IT, Managed IT services and Co-Managed IT. All three have their own perks and each option will appeal to different businesses for different reasons.
There isn’t one right answer for every business.
The right choice varies from business to business but will focus on aspects such as business size, business needs, budget, internal expertise, growth plans, past experiences and even location.
This article will take a deep dive into the benefits of Managed IT Services, Co-managed IT Services and In-House IT, helping you determine which approach is right for your business.
What Is In-House IT?
In-House IT is straightforward to understand. Members of your team, usually going by titles such as IT Manager, Head of IT or IT Support Staff, will control all your IT systems within your own company – these are your dedicated employees who are responsible for IT.
They will have internal control over your IT setup, direct access to your team and an excellent level of knowledge on the company’s own system and employees. Due to the close working relationship this individual or team will have with your decision-makers, there is the ability to prioritise tasks.
As such, there are many advantages to going down this route. Businesses will have almost immediate access to expertise positioned internally within the organisation. They will have a deep understanding of the business itself which brings a unique power of knowing how the business operates inside out. They’ll know the business aims, growth plans, immediate needs and be able to work towards their key performance indicators efficiently.
An extension of this is that they can seamlessly integrate other departments into projects, where appropriate – again providing an efficient approach to achieving your business aims.
In our experience, this approach is particularly relevant for businesses who have highly specific IT requirements – perhaps in the form of a large project.
However, with every approach there are some drawbacks. An Internal IT team also comes with additional costs such as salary, national insurance contributions, pension contributions, to name a few.
If your IT Manager is on holiday, who picks up the IT issues in their absence? It’s not reasonable to expect them to log on whilst they’re at the beach. By having an outsourced partner, you eliminate this risk. Of course, our team still take well-deserved holidays. When this does happen, other team members are ready to step in and provide support as and when needed.
This is one of the biggest benefits of outsourcing your IT.
The same applies if your employee is off work sick.
Whilst we have listed some disadvantages here, it is important to recognise that different businesses require different support - one business may favour solution A yet the other will go for solution B.
What Are Managed IT Services?
We touched on it briefly in the previous section but it’s time to properly introduce Managed IT Services.
Chances are, if you’re reading this blog, you already have a good idea what this is.
This is when a business partners with an external provider (hey that’s us!) to manage some or all of their IT.
Our fully managed IT services provide everything from resolving end-user issues and proactive monitoring to system maintenance and strategic IT planning.
We act as an extension of your team.
We combine 24/7 service desk support, remote monitoring and management (RMM), patching, device and user provisioning, and cloud-first best practices into one simple, scalable service. Backed by UK-based engineers and enterprise-grade tooling, we help you reduce downtime, improve efficiency, and scale with confidence.
Whether you're looking to modernise your infrastructure, reduce internal IT workload, or improve service reliability, KubeNet ensures your IT works, allowing your team to focus on what they do best.
We partner with leading providers including Microsoft, Sophos, Barracuda, Halo, and Datto to deliver best-in-class tooling across our managed service packages. From endpoint protection and email defence to ticketing, monitoring, backup and automation, our solutions are powered by industry-recognised platforms that keep businesses running smoothly.
As part of the Cyber and Fraud Centre Scotland's Incident Response Cadre, we support businesses when they need us most. We're also Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO27001 certified, clear indicators of our ongoing commitment to delivering secure, well-governed IT environments across every service.
This predictable pricing method is useful for many businesses who like to make budgeting easy whilst operating with an efficient and trustworthy IT partner.
One common pain point we hear of is employees who are being dragged away from their day-to-day roles to support with IT issues. This creates stress where there doesn’t need to be any. By adopting a fully outsourced model there is less pressure on internal staff, allowing them to focus on their day-to-day jobs.
Read here how we supported Heathrow Hydrant Operating Company (HHOC) with their IT.
You can read about our Fully Managed IT Services here.
It’s also important to note some negatives associated with this approach too. One of which is that the business will, naturally, have less direct control over their IT systems.
Natural teething issues may appear at the beginning of the partnership. Whilst this can happen in any new working relationship, we take steps such as onboarding calls to ensure that the partnership begins as seamlessly as possible by establishing a feedback loop early on, ensuring both teams are completely aligned on goals, and ironing out any workflow details right from the start.
The final “negative” here is that some businesses may just prefer to keep IT in-house.
As we touched on earlier, there is no right or wrong solution – it is always business-specific.
Managed IT Services vs In-House IT: Which Offers Better Cyber Security?
In the last year, 43% of UK businesses and 28% of UK charities have reported a cyber-attack. It’s a daunting thought that UK businesses have almost a one in two chance of facing a cyber-attack.
This statistic demonstrates the importance that must be placed on having a robust cybersecurity posture in place. As such, this cannot be a one-off project.
Internal teams may have strong IT knowledge but lack specialist security expertise. This is often the gap that an outsourced IT partner can fill. Having a full IT team behind you provides you with a cost-effective group of IT experts. With such vast knowledge in our team, all areas of IT are covered extensively.
Therefore, MSPs can provide access to specialist cyber security resources.
Managed IT services can also provide access to the technology and processes needed to maintain a strong cybersecurity posture. This can include endpoint detection, email security, multi-factor authentication, patch management, vulnerability management and ongoing security monitoring. Rather than relying on one or two internal employees to keep up with an ever-changing threat landscape, businesses can benefit from a wider team of specialists and industry-leading security tools.
One of the key benefits of managed IT services is access to a wider pool of specialist knowledge. An internal IT team may be responsible for everything from day-to-day technical support to infrastructure and user management, making it difficult to dedicate sufficient time to cybersecurity.
An MSP can provide additional expertise and resources, helping businesses strengthen their security without needing to build an entire specialist security team internally.
What About Co-Managed IT?
An alternative solution for businesses is Co-Managed IT – a middle ground between fully internal IT and fully outsourced IT.
Let’s look at an example here. A business may already have:
· An IT Manager
· Internal IT support
· Technical staff
However, there may be an upcoming project requiring specialist expertise or your internal team may be stretched due to workload.
This is where our IT team can step in and remove some of the burden. Your IT team can remain in the driver’s seat, and you can tap into our expertise, resources and support as and when you need us.
You maintain control
Retain ownership of your IT team while expanding your opportunities for growth. You control the strategy – we’re here to help.
Scale as needed
Call on our team of experts when you need them to support with projects and strategic initiatives.
Strengthen security
With the cyber threat landscape always evolving, our external perspective gives you insider insight into how peers are managing risk and minimising threats.
Manage costs
Reduce costs spent on a single new hire and day-to-day operations by using our team of multi-disciplinary experts who will focus on your strategy.
Taking away the headache
Every business has trivial tasks that eat up valuable time. We take away the headache of day-to-day IT, so you don’t waste internal resources – simply concentrate on your business goals.
Examples of where Co-Managed IT can help include:
· Overflow IT support
· Out-of-hours support
· Network management
· Backup and disaster recovery
You may be reading this thinking ‘yes this is the support I need’, you may also be thinking ‘does this apply to me?’. Let’s run through some scenarios where Co-Managed IT may be appropriate.
Scenario One
Your IT team is overwhelmed.
There is a high volume of tickets and routine tasks on the to-do list. Something must give and staff begin working reactively rather than proactively. In this instance, it is strategic projects that are dropping off your radar.
In this situation, KubeNet would step in and handle the routine, day-to-day task. Whilst your internal IT team focuses on the strategic goals of the business.
Scenario Two
You need specialist expertise you don’t have in-house. As we mentioned earlier, your business may have a capable and knowledgeable internal IT team, but you have a project that requires a specialist.
As this is a project, it’s a temporary solution that is required, not a permanent one. Therefore, hiring a new member of staff solely for this project doesn’t make sense.
KubeNet will step in and support with this project using our expertise throughout the business, covering IT specialisms that your internal team doesn’t have capacity for.
Which IT Model Is Right for Your Business?
As we have noted throughout, it is important to make the right decision for you. Hopefully this blog has helped you get a bit closer to that decision. Let’s run through a few scenarios (some of which may apply directly to your business), to find out what works best in which situations.
Business A: Smaller, growing business
· 50 employees
· No dedicated IT team
· Minimal internal expertise
Solution: Managed IT Services
Business B: Larger organisation with established IT
· 1,000 employees
· Established internal IT department
· Strong internal expertise
· Internal team has capacity
Solution: In-House IT
Business C: Growing organisation with an internal IT Manager
· 150 employees
· Internal IT team
· Struggling with capacity and specialist cyber security
Solution: Co-Managed IT Services
Questions To Ask Before Making Your Final Decision
We hope that this article has helped you come to the conclusion that either you need to outsource your full IT setup, take things in-house or meet in the middle and go for the co-managed IT setup.
If you’re still unsure which route is right for you, use the checklist below to assess your current setup. If you’re finding that your internal team is stretched but you don’t want to hand over your entire IT function, co-managed IT could offer the balance you’re looking for.
If you don’t have the internal resources to manage IT effectively, a fully managed IT services approach may be more suitable.
And if you have the expertise, resources and infrastructure to manage everything internally, keeping your IT in-house could be the right choice.
1. How many employees do you have?
2. How complex is your IT environment?
3. Do you have enough internal expertise?
4. Do you need 24/7 support?
5. How much are you currently spending on IT?
6. How quickly is your business growing?
7. What happens when your IT staff are unavailable?
These are the key things to consider when deciding your approach to IT support. Ultimately, there’s no single right answer when it comes to managing your business IT.
The best approach depends on the size of your organisation, the complexity of your technology and the expertise available within your existing team.
If you're looking to talk through your IT options, you can chat to our team here.
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