Technical support models: outsource vs in-house vs T&M

An IT system is like a car: you have to regularly maintain and service it, replace old parts, and fix various issues. In the context of business, IT support specialists are essentially mechanics for your digital product who configure, service, and repair the software.

Tech support services can be rendered on a one-off or regular basis. The former option is perfect for smaller companies with a specific issue at hand; e.g. adding something to the website, fixing a hosting problem or integrating a new CRM system. More sophisticated IT infrastructures, on the other hand, will require round the clock maintenance to regularly update programs, identify and eliminate bugs, administer servers, and configure backups. Another aspect of tech support is consulting technical specialists on the client’s side so that they can provide software training to the in-house staff.

To facilitate IT support, a business can either engage its in-house employees or rely on outsourcing. Let’s take a look at both options in more detail, shall we?

Outsourcing

There are three main outsourcing models: Fixed Price, Time and Material, and Dedicated Team.

• Fixed price

Remember that one-off service model we’ve mentioned earlier? Yep, that’s called Fixed Price. Clients may request it when they need to make minor additions or tweaks to an ongoing project; e.g. integrate an online store with an e-commerce platform like Yandex.Market or Ozon. In this case, the contractor calculates the budget, names a fixed price, and takes care of all the work.

If a client wants to create a new project from scratch, tech support will often also be included in the overall budget. For example, the cost of developing a mobile app will include analytics, design, and subsequent technical support on top of the actual development.

• Time and Material

Time and Material, or simply T&M, is a model where the client engages specialists for an agreed number of hours per month and compensates them at an hourly rate. Some tasks are occasional in nature and do not require constant attention; in that case, employing someone on a full-time basis can simply be uneconomical.

A good example of services that can be rendered under the T&M model is digital maintenance, be that a website, an app, or an IT platform. Maintenance services include scheduled backups, virus protection, content editing, and integration of new elements. This work is obviously necessary, but it’s not regular enough to justify a new hire.

The main problem here is that the client can’t always accurately predict how much time their task might take. Therefore, businesses that will reap the most benefits out of T&M are those that have sufficient IT expertise to accurately make all the necessary calculations.

Additionally, we offer a T&M option where the customer tells us their monthly budget on tech support, and we provide the most fitting specialists for their case and calculate the amount of hours that will need to be put in every month.

• Outstaffing

Just like T&M, outstaffing enables companies to engage pre-selected tech support experts. The main difference here is that the client gains full access to the team, and the outsourced specialists essentially become part of the client’s staff for an agreed period of time (hence the term “outstaffing”). In terms of hourly rates, this approach is cheaper than T&M; however, as the client assumes full control over the team he also becomes responsible for workload management and task assignment.

Outstaffing is great for implementing large projects that require full-time commitment. At the same time, you need to have a good understanding of IT processes to accurately estimate the scope of work and the time required to complete it. For this reason, efficient outstaffing – much like T&M – requires some degree of IT competence on the client’s side.

In-house and hybrid model

On the surface, the concept is pretty self-explanatory: a company develops a product and services it through in-house specialists. In reality, however, companies that have large and complex IT solutions often have to rely on a hybrid support model that involves both insourcing and outsourcing. So what’s the logic behind this? First of all, companies may occasionally have small tasks that fall outside the competence of the current in-house personnel. From an economic standpoint, it makes more sense to delegate these tasks to a contractor rather than hire a dedicated employee.

Secondly, an agency’s expertise will always be broader than that of a single person, no matter how experienced they are. The best option will always come in the form of a symbiosis between in-house employees well familiar with the product and outsourced experts.

The relationship between in-house and outsourced teams depends on the exact situation. Our company had cases where we both shared and divided process management responsibilities with the client’s staff. In the end, it all boils down to choosing a model that enables both teams to unleash each other’s potential to the fullest.