IT company or IT staff?

Business is doing good and so my husband and I decided to transfer to a bigger space. Bigger space means more employees and more computers. Now, we cannot decide if we should hire an office based IT staff or just hire an IT company to manage our IT needs. My choice is to just hire an IT company but hubby here opts for the other one. What do you think?

How many man hours can you fill with IT needs? How much would you have to pay per hour to an external company? At some point it becomes cheaper to have 1 full time employee. Maybe 1 half-time is also an option.
I'd say do the math first, then consider the other factors.

Also consider that you can hire a contractor who might be more expensive to start off with, but if you keep growing it would then be easier to either switch to several fulltime employees or an IT company.

Personally, I would go with someone I felt I could rely on - which would probably mean being a part of the hiring process.

I'm not a big fan of letting anyone "external" do anything important for me.

Hmm. One thing you get if you hire a company is backup so when your usual contact/worker is sick/vacation/leaves/etc. you don't have a gap. Also with your own person you have to factor in training and other 'hygiene' costs.
Is IT a core competency for the company? If yes then maybe hire, if no then why build that competency yourself?

It obviously depends on how big your needs are and what kind of IT support you need.

But given the limited information you have provided I would definitely buy the services you need, for example if you hire one person, and he is sick or on vaccation.. you'll be without IT support. Also if you write a good contract with the IT company, they'll need to pay you compensation if something doesn't work and so on.

How much is loyalty worth? Contractors generally don't have much investment.

To justify a dedicated IT resource you need a big company. Perhaps you could hire someone who can dual role IT and someone else. Depends how many staff you have. 15 staff don't get an IT person....100 staff ok perhaps now

Good point, Warlod. I really don't see a full-time IT guy with a pre-100 staff.

I'm the IT person for a small company. We used to have 200 people here so I was a dedicated IT person who also made quote a few programs for the company as well.

Now we are MUCH smaller so I do IT, HR, Payroll and Project Coordinator stuff.

Theres a HUGE plus in having a person who knows everything about your IT needs but if your small you will not need a full time employee just for that. Make sure they do not mind doing other tasks as well if you go that route and are smallish.

I would recommend outsourcing it really if you can't justify a position. Start up cost may be a bit high but long term it will cheaper than an experienced full time person.

Nothing wrong with hiring someone for a part time position as well. Plenty of people do not want to work full time.

I'm working for an IT company hosting servers/selling IT services to other companies.
Well. Let me think.

You might start by contracting a (bunch of) freelancer(s) who also work for other companies. In the beginning it should be easier to adjust manpower to your needs this way. Once actual needs have been established, you might either hire IT personnel (perhaps offer a contract to the freelancer(s) or outsource to an IT company - both has its advantages and disadvantages.

Oh sorry! I just read all your replies now. We've been very busy lately…in and out of the country. I'm glad to see all your suggestions / inputs. So finally, we both decided to have one on-board who will just be there to assist us on a daily basis and at the same time hire a small IT company who can help us manage our bigger IT needs. I found this site while I was making a research for IT firms and I want to find like 2-3 companies which can offer similar services. Hopefully, we would be able to have one very soon and I hope we can afford as well. Thank you again!