Many growing organizations already have someone who handles IT: a dedicated IT manager, or an office manager who became “the computer person.” Co-managed IT keeps that person in charge and puts a full IT team behind them. Here is how it works, and how to tell whether it fits.
What co-managed IT means
With fully managed IT, an outside provider acts as your entire IT department. With co-managed IT, you keep your in-house IT staff and share the work with a managed service provider. Your team keeps ownership of the day-to-day relationships and decisions. The provider adds tools, security, depth and extra hands where you need them.
Signs your IT person needs backup
- Projects keep slipping because day-to-day tickets come first.
- Nobody covers IT when your IT person is on vacation or out sick.
- Security tools and monitoring are thinner than you’d like, or nobody is watching the alerts.
- Your cyber insurance questionnaire asks about controls you’re not sure you have.
- Network, server or Microsoft 365 problems land outside your person’s experience.
- Your IT person is doing the work of two or three people.
How the work is usually divided
There is no single template, and that’s the point. Common arrangements include:
- Your team handles users, we handle infrastructure. Your IT person stays the first call for staff, and we look after servers, networks, backups and security.
- Overflow and escalation. Your team works the help desk, and hands off anything that needs more time or deeper expertise.
- Security and monitoring. We provide endpoint protection, monitoring, patching and backup checks across your environment, and your team acts on the results.
- Projects. Migrations, office moves and upgrades get extra hands without pulling your person off daily support.
- Coverage. When your IT person is out, someone who already knows your systems answers the phone.
Whatever the split, it should be written down: who answers which requests, who approves changes, and how the two teams hand work back and forth.
Why not just hire a second IT person?
Sometimes that’s the right answer. But one more hire still leaves gaps: no single person covers security, networking, servers, Microsoft 365 and strategy equally well, and you still need coverage when either of them is away. Co-managed IT gives your existing person a whole team’s worth of skills and tools, and it can grow or shrink with your needs.
Questions to ask a co-managed IT provider
- Will my IT person keep admin access and final say over changes?
- How do our teams share tickets and documentation?
- Which security tools are included, and who watches the alerts?
- Who covers support when our IT person is out?
- How are projects scoped and billed?
- Can the arrangement change as we grow, or if our IT person leaves?
Our co-managed IT services are built around your in-house team, not around replacing it. If you’d like to talk through how it would work for your organization, get in touch or call 608-441-9888.