My IT Technology Consultants Blog

I’m regularly asked by executives at high growth companies how to scale their IT team to grow with their growing company. They say, “I have ## of employees, how many IT employees should I have?” Or they ask, “When I get to ## people, how big should my IT department be?” Scaling IT at high growth companies isn’t a simple answer like one IT employee for every 50 or 100 employees. I’ve seen companies with 25 people on staff that need a full-time IT person and companies with 1,000+ employees across the country with no IT personnel on staff. It depends on the company’s need for technology, network knowledge, required response time, and many more factors.

As we onboard new clients, we educate them on the power of standardizing their hardware and the financial benefits of doing so. By standardization, I don’t mean every user at My IT has the same computer or every person in your company needs the same devices, but you should be able to create groups of users that have similar needs. For example, an engineer needs a more powerful computer than someone in administration because the engineer runs CAD programs that take up a lot of memory and storage. Also, a mechanic or someone working in the field needs a durable laptop while that engineer will prefer the speed of a desktop model. Creating a few basic user groups or profiles allows you to standardize your hardware while still giving each employee the right tool for the job.

Last week I spoke to two CFOs that had the same concerns, but from very different aspects. Both CFOs work at high growth companies that have gone from 10 to 50 employees in the last few years and each company plans to grow well above 100 employees. Not surprisingly, around the 50-person mark, each of them was looking at their next steps regarding IT. Because of my series on Hiring IT, these CFOs reached out and asked me to look at their specific IT situations, then give my thoughts on what they should do next. I started out by asking each CFO what concerns with IT they had.

One of the CFOs was considering hiring the company’s first internal IT professional because they were outgrowing their single IT guy’s capabilities and he was stretched too thin because he had a dozen other clients. The other CFO was looking to outsource the IT for the first time, taking that burden off one of the company's senior executives that adequately handled it when they were smaller, but now is in over his head. To my surprise, each had the same concern – a fear of losing control and confidentiality. Even though they were looking at two different avenues of solving their technology needs (hiring versus outsourcing), each had the exact same concerns. I thought I’d continue my Hiring IT series to address their concerns, especially since this isn’t the first time I’ve heard them.

One of the biggest challenges I often hear from business executives about IT is in regards to hiring and managing their IT team, whether internal or outsourced. Usually this duty is bestowed on the CFO or Controller, regardless of their skillset or knowledge of technology. Why? Because IT is seen as an expense, not as a profit center (I’ll discuss how this needs to change in the near future), so logically the “money man” needs to manage it.

The reason CFOs or Controllers struggle to hire and manage their IT team is that they do not know the difference between a poor,  an average, or a great IT professional.

Most CEOs and CFOs start thinking they need to hire their first IT staff when the company gets to 50 employees. Up until this time, they’ve contracted a small IT company (usually a 1-man outfit), who adequately handled their needs when their company had 5-20 users.

Over time as they grow larger and add more users, it seems the relationship with their contracted small IT company is failing because they don’t have enough time in the day to handle the increasing needs, nor have the diversity of skills needed to manage the growing infrastructure. This starts to impact the company’s bottom line, especially when companies get up to 40 or 50 employees. Hence why the discussion of hiring someone for IT arises.

A lot of growing companies wonder how many IT professionals they need for their company and when should they hire additional support for their IT department as they grow. Many CEOs and CFOs think they need to add more IT staff as the ticket count grows above certain numbers, but that can be a poor metric to measure because it is purely reactive.

The answer to when to hire IT is more complex than stating that for every 50 users you have, you need one IT professional because every company is unique, including their reliance on technology, cost of downtime, number of offices, and the complexity of their network.

When you double or triple the size of your company, you may feel that things aren’t working as smooth anymore, especially with your IT infrastructure. (Note: We’re talking about your network, computers, and processes, not your IT support team in this post. To learn about outgrowing your IT support, see How Much Is Your Contracted, Overwhelmed IT Guy Really Costing You?)

Keep in mind, you can expect to have more issues because you’re bigger; 50 employees will need more support than 20 employees. However, with your larger size, you should be able to afford better solutions to proactively prevent more issues as well. You can also afford to automate things, so instead of manually updating the operating system and anti-virus on all 50 computers, you should have a tool to allow you to automate that task, or at least update them remotely without having to sit at each workstation. If this is not the case, then most likely, you are seeing these signs.

If you’re asking this question, my gut tells me it is time for you to look at a new solution. Why? You already know your guy is working harder, not smarter (and it’s costing you). 3-5 years ago, your contracted IT guy was a good fit, and now you’ve outgrown him. You haven’t invested in him and he hasn’t invested in your company; he didn’t scale with you. Here is how to know if it is time to make a change with your IT.

7 Signs That You’ve Outgrown Your Contracted IT Guy

1. Are you his biggest client?
2. Do many of your issues never get resolved?

Over the years we’ve worked with quite a few high-growth companies that developed past their single-person IT company and their in-house DIY (Do-IT-Yourself) employee, both affectionately known as the “IT guy”. I asked them, “What is the value of outsourcing your technology to an IT firm versus having a single ‘IT guy’ handle it?”

Something we often hear from new clients is that they should have looked for a large IT provider sooner instead of using the same “IT guy” for years without question. (For this interview, we’re referring to the “IT guy” as a male or female break/fix contractor, single in-house IT person, or a small 2-3 person outsourced firm.) Many clients say they don’t know what they don’t know when it comes to technology and they didn’t realize how much of an impact changing IT support providers would have on their business.

With that in mind, we decided to pick the brain of the two partners at My IT, David Bourgeois and Patrick Leonard, and ask them what are the signs that a business has outgrown their IT guy?