Why You Should Not Resent Outsourcing Your IT

Managing directors you don’t need to do everything…

Once upon a time you became the founder of a new start-up and you quickly realised that this new role means you ‘wear many hats’.

You left one job to start your dream company and have temporarily traded it for 10 more!

 

Now you must make leadership decisions, deal with customer support, be responsible for the marketing, conduct sales calls…the list goes on!

 

Even as you start to build a small team behind you, the work that goes with building a start-up company can easily become overwhelming.

And this is before you consider some of the technical issues that come with needing a solid IT function to allow you and your team to deliver the revenue generating work.

 

Our culture likes to overemphasise ‘hard work’ and we are always told that we will be successful if we are just willing to ‘hustle’ and ‘work hard’.

This advice is well intended, but have you ever considered why there are some entrepreneurs that are able to rapidly grow without hustling for 12 hours a day? While some work longer than this and never see results?

 

Hard work alone does not equal success and we need to stop pretending it does.

 

Surely, it’s more important to focus on the high value activities that earn you revenue rather than those important but lower value activities?

As a business founder and managing director, you’ve probably been focusing on the wrong activities.

 

As a business founder and managing director, your time and energy are valuable resources, and you need to make sure you’re investing them wisely. While it’s tempting to try to do everything yourself and tackle every task on your to-do list, the reality is that not all activities are created equal. Some tasks have a much greater impact on your bottom line than others, and it’s crucial to identify these high-value activities and prioritise them accordingly.

 

Roughly speaking, only a small percentage of the activities in your business contribute to 90% of your results. These activities will vary from business to business, but they generally involve making strategic decisions and conducting high value client work that move your business forward by generating more revenue.

 

By focusing on these high-value activities and delegating or outsourcing the rest, you can free up your time and energy to work on the tasks that truly matter. This approach allows you to work smarter, not harder, and achieve greater results with less effort.

 

And unless you are a ‘techy’, IT is NOT one of them…

 

Are you saving money or are you costing yourself a fortune?

 

As a managing director, you should identify and focus on the top percentage of revenue generating activities.

 

And IT is NOT one of them…

 

If you are not currently outsourcing your IT, or perhaps you do but you resent having to pay a third-party for that service, then this has been written for you!

 

Let’s face it, most of us are not tech or IT geniuses, but we also cannot deny how fundamental it is in helping us to act effectively in today’s world, particularly in business.

 

Many founders and managing directors of small-medium companies choose to ‘save money’ and stay in control of the business operations by keeping key services like their IT in house by hiring one IT manager, or by trying to solve them themselves.

You may have taken a quick look at the cost of outsourcing your crucial IT operations and decided that you can save the £1500 a month (example for this blog post) fees by trying to build an IT system or fix problems yourself.

After all, it is very crucial to keep hold of as much capital as possible, right?

 

This may give the illusion that you are saving the business money, but in reality, you are costing yourself a fortune by not investing in this crucial business operation.

 

Let me ask you a question which you may not have considered before.

 

What is an hour of your time worth?

 

There is a reason why this is being asked.

 

It’s a tricky question because how can you really measure this?

But for this exercise, let’s calculate what an hour of your work time is worth.

For the sake of this exercise, let’s say your current revenue is £1,000,000.

 

Take £1,000,000 and divide it by 2080.

 

Why 2080?

 

This is the average number of work hours in a year. This is contingent upon the average 40 hour work week in a 50-week year.

This is an example, and you can calculate your own working hours to make it more accurate for

you.

 

£1,000,000 divided by 2080 = £480.77.

 

£480.77 is your hourly rate.

 

This is essentially what you are worth to your company as your decisions drive the revenue.

 

An hour of your time as the managing director is worth £480.77 and let’s say that you spend an additional 20 hours a month on top of what you already work, either dealing with IT issues or you lose 20 hours due to slow and inefficient systems.

 

20 x £480.77 = £9615.40.

 

The decision not to outsource your IT and deal with issues yourself is not saving the business £1500 a month, it is actually costing it £9615.40.

And this is without considering the emotional costs involved of taking on additional hours which will likely lead to burnout.

 

In this example, the managing director is costing the business a minimum of £8115.40 a month (£9615.40 – £1500 outsourcing fees) which equals £97,384.80 a year.

And this is without taking into consideration the risks involved with implementing security measures incorrectly which puts the business at risk from going bankrupt should a disaster like a an operational shut down or a cyber-attack occur.

The real cost to the business is far greater than £97,384.80 a year.

 

Time is something you cannot get back, but with money you can.

 

Outsourcing your IT means that you can focus on your zone of genius and the top percentage of the major revenue building activities which will make the business grow. Your employees can also focus on their piece of the puzzle to help the business without being frequently disrupted because of the poor IT.

 

In this example, every hour that you are not spending on revenue generating, specific managing director activities, is costing you £480.77 an hour.

 

When you know what an hour of your working time is worth, you know how much it’s costing you not to be doing the high value revenue generating activities.

 

Start prioritising your business growth by choosing to value your IT provider, and if you do not feel like they are giving enough value to your business, then you may be experiencing symptoms of being an ‘IT-Lost’ Business Founder…

Take our quick fire, no email address needed, 2-minute quiz to receive some personalised resources on dependent on your situation to help you to relieve some of your IT frustrations.

Click here to take Are You An IT-Lost Business Leader quiz now!