There is great corporate migration to Nashville right now. Companies are moving out of the high tax and regulation states like CA and NY and bringing lots of jobs with them.! This is great for the local economy, but will accelerate the need for (local) businesses to shift to outsourcing their IT to a partner. Business leaders need to plan for this and not be caught flat footed when their internal IT resources start leaving.
This is basic supply and demand. As the demand for technology professionals increases, the wages for those roles will also increase. Amazon, Oracle, and others will drive wages up until businesses will not be able to justify the ROI on internal IT resources. This is where an IT partner comes in!
IT partners have economies of scale that allow us to hire, train, and retain technical talent as the market shifts and wages increase. We also can provide a career path in addition to increased earnings over time, which internal IT cannot do. Unless you are in the IT business, keeping internal IT resources on staff will not be economically viable in the near future.
The majority of internal IT positions are filled by people that have been there less than 5 years, and will be leaving soon. Many businesses are unintentionally running a training program for the large companies moving to town. Long term this situation increases the cost of internal IT while decreasing the skill level and effectiveness of the group overall.
The business then finds itself in the situation of having an IT Director that doesn’t have the skills needed to transform IT, but only to maintain the status quo (and keep their job), nor anyone to “direct”. They become a very expensive helpdesk resource.
If your business has less than 500 employees you need to start looking at outsourcing IT now. Not when all the “good” folks jump ship for the higher paying and more upwardly mobile positions! This is a C-level problem and should not be delegated to the IT Director. That is essentially asking them to figure out how to keep their role intact while outsourcing the actual work to an outside group. The result of that will be a non-value add IT EXPENSE and not a partner that can move your business forward.
The number of times we watch a prospect lose an internal IT resource to a larger company, rehire, and watch it happen all over again in six months is amazing. The definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result”. Don’t go insane, just get out there and proactive find an IT partner!