IT Outsourcing (SLA)

Can IT Outsourcing benefit my Company?

It’s a fact, IT Outsourcing in Durban is the obvious choice for most companies, as in-house IT staff are expensive, difficult to motivate and manage, and in many cases they don’t stay around for very long. We aim to provide a comprehensive and excellent support service to the on-site customer, including Service Desk and user support. Read on!

When it comes to IT Outsourcing, there are two main support models:

Traditional IT Outsourcing is similar to having your own in-house IT staff – except that they are not on your own payroll. Less stress, no fuss! Instead, you pay the IT Outsourcing Company to provide a certain number of staff for a pre-determined number of hours. The benefit? Access to technical skills without having additional staff on your payroll. The disadvantage is that you can end up paying more for that staff member than you would do if you hired your own in-house staff. Ultimately though, this model suffers from the same shortcomings as traditional break-fix IT Support, in that you are paying for technical resources, instead of paying for your network to be optimally maintained.

Managed Services, on the other hand, is a different model of IT Outsourcing altogether. Instead of paying for the time of an IT employee, you are paying for your systems to be properly designed, maintained and supported – regardless of what the service provider has to do to achieve that. Ultimately, this is the end objective of our IT department. By choosing a managed services provider as your IT Outsourcing partner you can enjoy all the benefits of IT Outsourcing, but without the downside. Put simply, Managed IT Services give you the best of both worlds – reliable IT systems and effective support – without having to find, employ and retain your own team of technical staff.

The table below summarises some of the key differences between in-house IT departments, traditional IT Outsourcing and Managed Services:

In-house IT Staff	Traditional Outsourced / Break-Fix IT Support	iWebz Managed Services
Overview	Overview	Overview
The customer takes on an internal staff member who is responsible for IT. Staff member is seldom equipped with proper network management tools due to extremely high costs. Maintenance work is performed manually during office hours.	An external company is paid to spend a certain number of hours per week/month on support. Any additional support is billed per hour. After-hours work is billed at higher rates. Proper network management tools are seldom deployed at the client’s premises due to prohibitive pricing. Maintenance work performed manually during office hours.	iWebz is tasked with maintaining the network at a fixed monthly cost. Other than new hardware there are no extra or hidden costs, so the customer can budget for IT support with accuracy. iWebz’s network management platform is used to automate the majority of tasks, thereby reducing the need for manual intervention. Implementation of MSP software allow a high degree of warning of imminent hardware failure thus reducing your downtime. All maintenance tasks are performed out of office hours.
Pros	Pros	Pros
Perceived benefit of being able to manage own staff. Unfortunately, managing IT staff comes with its own set of challenges which often aren’t fully appreciated until it is too late.	The interests of the IT support company are directly opposed to those of the customer, as the IT support company benefits from any additional IT support hours which the customer uses. Staff training, skills redundancy, etc. is the responsibility of the Service Provider. Finding and retaining good IT staff is the responsibility of the Service Provider	Financial risk lies with iWebz. In the event of a system failure, iWebz is responsible for recovering the failed system. Fixed monthly cost for all-in support. Comprehensive SLA with an opt-out clause for the customer in the case of non-compliance by iWebz. Staff training, skills redundancy, etc. is the responsibility of iWebz. Finding and retaining good IT staff is the responsibility of iWebz. Maintenance tasks (updates, anti-virus scans, disk cleanups, etc.) are performed out of work hours, without affecting productivity. Staff member on leave/off sick – no fuss Medical Aid, UIF, etc…..covered by iWebz
Cons	Cons	Cons
Financial risk lies with the customer. In the event of a system failure, the in-house technician is responsible for recovering it. However, many times this requires deeper skills than the in-house staff possess and as a result an external consultant is called in, at hourly rates. Best-effort by in-house staff – no guarantee in terms of service levels. Staff training, skills redundancy, etc. is the responsibility of the employer. Maintenance tasks (updates, anti-virus scans, disk cleanups, etc.) are performed during work hours; this has a significant impact on productivity. Absenteeism/leave means no productivity and no back up support Admin re medical cover/UIF etc.	Financial risk lies solely with the customer. In the event of a system failure, the customer carries the cost of the recovery. Any after-hours work is billed at overtime rates, increasing the financial risk carried by the customer. Time-based billing results in highly unpredictable IT support costs. Maintenance tasks (updates, anti-virus scans, disk cleanups, etc.) are performed during work hours; this has a significant impact on productivity	Nothing! Managed services provides the client with a stable, secure IT infrastructure without the need to hire staff, or worry about administrative issues.

What we do:

Our greatest contribution is maintaining your organization's work flow and keeping its lines of communication open via LANs, WANs and intranets (if applicable). This work is not for the faint of heart. In a single day, he or she may encounter stacks of servers, dozens of crisscrossing network cables and major malfunctions with the hardware and software that runs your local area and wide area networks.

Managed Services Since you depend on your networks for so much of their work, problems must be corrected swiftly and completely. Aside from identifying network issues and fixing them in the quickest time possible, we also make updates to all equipment and software to ensure they are current.

Also of utmost importance is ensuring email and data storage networks work properly and employee workstations are connected to the central computer network. 24/7!

Where applicable, we manage telecommunication networks so employees can work from home or on the road, which is becoming more and more important as new technologies allow employees to connect remotely. We implement upgraded security measures to protect workplace computer systems.

IT is our passion and it remains imperative for us to keep abreast of technology trends and changes by undergoing ongoing training, (at our own cost) and just as important to study and (continue) to learn the intricacies of network technology and acquire an acute understanding of how information flows. We also identify DNS, DHCP and firewalls, and define the roles they play in your network infrastructure.

Our team will work with you to create alignment between your expectations and operational processes and output in relation to Outsource Service Delivery. The output of our Outsource Team will ultimately result in providing excellent customer service that exceeds expectations.

We look forward to providing you with awesome service based on an excellent business model.