The in-house option
An internal team knows your business intimately and is always on hand. But hiring is expensive, one or two people can't cover every discipline, and holidays, illness and turnover leave gaps.
For many small and medium businesses, a full in-house team is hard to justify and hard to keep.
The managed option
A managed provider gives you a whole team, support, cloud, networking, security, for a predictable monthly fee, with proactive monitoring and no single point of failure.
The trade-off is that they're not sitting in your office, though good providers feel like an extension of your team.
The best of both
It's not always either/or. Many businesses run a hybrid model: an internal person or team for hands-on and business-specific needs, with a managed provider handling monitoring, security, out-of-hours cover and specialist projects.
This co-managed approach combines local knowledge with broad expertise and resilience.
In-house, managed or co-managed: a side-by-side comparison
The three models differ most on breadth of skills, cover during absence and where the resilience sits. This table summarises the trade-offs discussed above.
| Consideration | In-house team | Managed provider | Co-managed (hybrid) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business knowledge | Knows your business intimately and is always on hand | Not sitting in your office, though good providers feel like an extension of your team | Internal person keeps the local knowledge |
| Cost shape | Hiring is expensive, and salaries are fixed | Predictable monthly fee | One salary plus a monthly fee |
| Breadth of skills | One or two people cannot cover every discipline | A whole team across support, cloud, networking and security | Local knowledge plus broad expertise |
| Cover for absence | Holidays, illness and turnover leave gaps | Proactive monitoring with no single point of failure | Provider covers out-of-hours and specialist work |
| Resilience | A single point of failure | No single point of failure | Combines both |
| Best suited to | Businesses that can justify and retain a full team | Most small and medium businesses | Businesses with an internal person who needs depth behind them |
How to decide
Weigh cost, the breadth of skills you need, how critical uptime is, and how much resilience matters. For most SMEs, managed or co-managed IT delivers more capability and less risk than going it alone.
If the managed or co-managed route looks right, our fully managed IT support page sets out exactly what is included.
