March 17, 2022 | By stephen

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Choosing the Right IT Company: Does Size Matter?

• Cybersecurity
• Uncategorized

One question every business leader grapples with, especially when looking for managed IT services providers, is “What size IT company should we use?”. Most cybersecurity companies have five to ten employees, most of which are engineers or technical staff. We were there once but quickly scaled up to meet our clients’ changing needs.

What Size IT Company Should I Use | LeadingIT 069

Does the IT Company’s Size Matter?

When we entered the IT solutions business, it wasn’t as sophisticated as today. Most organizations had one or a couple of IT guys they could call upon when necessary. They would perform routine maintenance checks, deploy new technologies, and respond to glitches.

This reactive approach was the norm for almost every IT service provider back then, and it worked pretty well. Cyber threats were simple, and their impacts weren’t as far-reaching as today. Nobody would have imagined that the cost of data breaches would be as high as $3.86 million per incident a few years later.

According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime costs the global economy more than $6 trillion annually and makes the reactive approach to IT support impractical. Service providers must plan, project potential threats, and devise ways to avert them. An IT guy or cybersecurity company with a couple of engineers may not be up to this task. It’s taking more technical talent and engineers to deliver proper IT solutions today than it did a decade ago.

So, yes—size matters. A service provider with five technicians may not offer the same attention to detail as one with 20 employees. The bigger the service provider’s size, the higher the quality of service they’re likely to provide.

Top Considerations for Choosing the Best Sized IT Company

Here are other considerations when choosing the right IT company for your business:

Can the IT Company Monitor Your Systems 24/7?

As cyberattacks are getting more lethal, the bad guys have found ways to “silently” enter targets’ networks and stay dormant for weeks or even months. During this dormancy period, they mine all the information they need to launch the deadliest onslaught on your systems. They may also learn your communication patterns, launch simulated attacks, monitor your response protocols, and identify your weak points. For example, in last year’s SolarWinds breach, experts say that the hackers were in the tech giant’s networks more than a year before the incident.

The ideal IT company should have enough personnel to monitor your network 24/7. Only then can they notice and avert breach attempts early enough. As basic as it sounds, network monitoring is one of the most crucial data security measures.

How Fast Can the IT Company Respond to Breach Attempts & Support Requests?

For a long time, breaches only involved unauthorized access and theft of corporate data. Today, the bad guys focus on interrupting business operations as a mechanism of bargaining for higher ransoms. Data from Statista shows that in 2019, server outages cost organizations an average of $301,000 to $400,000 per hour. The figure could be higher today.

The earlier your IT solutions company responds to a breach, the sooner you can thwart it, and the less it will cost your organization. But how can the service provider respond fast enough if all of its three or so technicians are engaged elsewhere?

Why Choose a Mid-Sized Service Provider?

There’s no standard requirement for an IT company’s number of engineers. But, a service provider with below ten employees may be too small for your small or medium-sized business’ IT support needs. The company may have at least 15 to 40 employees. A mid-sized IT service provider can help you:

• Improve threat detection for quick incident response times: Mid-sized service providers are big enough to have proper tools and implement the intrusion detection and prevention layers. IT companies that can afford to employ 20 IT specialists undoubtedly have enough resources to deliver high-quality cybersecurity solutions.
• Access a dedicated team of highly trained cyber professionals: The best thing about mid-sized IT service providers is that they often take time to learn your organization to the detail. Unlike multinational service providers with thousands of customers, they serve a smaller region to ensure their clients get their full attention. For example, at LeadingIT, we use a documentation system that allows our technicians to deliver the most customized solution possible.

So, what’s the best size IT company? There’s no standard guideline, but a mid-sized service provider with 15-40 employees is an ideal size. They are big enough to have the resources and small enough to give each client specialized attention.

LeadingIT offers 24/7, all-inclusive, fast, and friendly technology and cybersecurity support for nonprofits, manufacturers, schools, accounting firms, religious organizations, government, and law offices with 10-200 employees across the Chicagoland area.