It is all too often that we've stepped foot into a company who had a full-time IT department, maybe a group of technicians, or sometimes just a single staff member, and have eliminated their position. There are an overwhelming number of companies who have an IT staff that doesn't have 40 hours of actual work to do every week. In fact, in many instances, they only have about 20% of that amount of work to do. They are kept there for a few reasons. First, the company isn't aware of how little the It department really does on a daily basis. Second, they are left as a security blanket. Third, the company feels as though the members of their staff are the only ones who know their system.

The best way to demonstrate this scenario is by example. ABC Funding Inc. (ABC) contacted us back in 1998 to consider taking the position of their IT person; we'll call him John. John had found another position and had decided to move on. John had indicated to the company that they may be better off finding a company to handle their network on an outsourced basis as opposed to replacing himself with a full-time person. ABC took his advice and was referred to Link Tech Computer Services through a mutual business associate. We worked with John for a couple of weeks running through all of the intricacies of their system (many of which we had seen before). After John left, we made some adjustments to their system and some other various improvements.

John was being paid $72,000 annually, plus full benefits, including a matching 401k. After all was said and done, he was costing the company close to $91,000 annually. After making some minor improvements, we scheduled two 3-hour visits, twice weekly as well as set them up for remote monitoring. They were charged a rate of $120/hour for these services. In the first year, they spent just under $40,000 with Link Tech, thus saving over $51,000 year. In addition, they had the brain power of a consulting firm giving them advice on making other technology related business practices more efficient. They also had the security of knowing that we would always be there for them for many years to come; no need to retrain another employee, no need to worry about what was going to happen when John went on vacation. They felt completely secure.