Tech Talent Shortage Facing CIOs In The US

Tech Talent Shortage: Atlantic-IT Solves Major Challenge Facing CIOs In The US

One of the greatest threats enterprises face today is the growing tech talent shortage. Tech talent has been at a premium for years, but the shift to remote work, rapid digital transformation, low unemployment levels in IT professions, and increased security concerns resulting from the pandemic only boosted the urgent need for tech talent of all kinds, significantly exacerbating the skills gap.

With no short-term solution in sight, CIOs have turned to outsourcing some or all of their infrastructure management as a reliable, cost-effective means of accessing the highly skilled tech talent they need to drive agility, innovation, and growth. Managed Service Providers (MSP) like Atlantic-IT help organizations run more efficiently by managing and optimizing all or part of their IT systems to be more efficient and productive.

According to Gartner’s Worldwide IT Spending Forecast, worldwide IT spending is projected to reach $4.45 trillion in 2022, an increase of 5.1% from 2021. IT services, including consulting and managed services, will have the second-highest spending growth this year, reaching $1.3 trillion, up 7.9% from 2021. Specifically, business and technology consulting spending is expected to grow 10%.

Outsourcing has become a solution for companies looking to resolve complex tech hiring issues, from delegating entire projects, adding extra hiring power to HR teams, and filling skills gaps. Companies that understand how to use outsourcing properly and see it not just as a means for hiring entire teams or handing off projects but also as an extension of their current recruiting abilities can often reduce the number of compromises they make based on talent availability.

Let’s look at the benefits of working with an MSP like Atlantic-IT to help solve the talent shortage crunch facing CIOs.

Using Outsourcing to Find Specialized Talent

Organizations that have the best and the most highly specialized tech talent in their ranks can often deliver services faster, find solutions to problems quickly, and create amazing customer experiences that result in higher revenue. However, having the best talent is no easy task.

With their limited staffing capacity and minimal exposure to systems outside what they’re used to, internal IT departments often find it hard to stay on top of the latest technology and security trends. One of our advantages as an MSP is exposure to many systems and platforms across our very different clients. This gives us the knowledge and real-world experience to properly steer our clients in the right direction depending on their needs.

An internal IT team may need to be trained and familiarized with a new platform, while an MSP would likely have already done multiple deployments of the same system and bring to the table real-world experience, which will ultimately save time and money.

Outsourcing Allows You to Focus on Core Business

Because business environments and needs are constantly changing, MSPs give CIOs the freedom to focus on their business without worrying about staffing to support IT infrastructure, core application support, data center, or security. Knowing that the MSP has that under control allows CIOs to attend to dynamic business needs changes and drive innovation while freeing up internal IT staff for more strategic projects.

The most successful CIOs recognize that their existing IT staff generally has intimate knowledge of the organization’s internal processes and line-of-business applications. Having those staff members handle infrastructure management, maintenance, and Level 1 end-user support is a big waste of that knowledge, provides little room for career growth, and often increases the risk of losing the best staff members to a more attractive position elsewhere.

Shifting the IT work that does not move the needle for the organization to an MSP allows for the transition of existing staff to a better career path and more rewarding project work. Many CIOs also discover that MSPs have better maintenance and reporting tools and are much more thorough at handling core infrastructure and support functions. This is particularly effective for those organizations that have IT compliance requirements.

MSPs Can Help You Combat Cyber Threats

As cyber threats become increasingly more sophisticated, targeted, and widespread, cybersecurity is one of the top CIO priorities in 2022. Cybersecurity requires multiple layers of security measures, consistent monitoring, and the agility to evolve with trends. However, hiring and retaining cybersecurity talent remains a challenge for many organizations. Most SMBs don’t have the resources to run a fully staffed security operations center (SOC) or have dedicated threat intelligence teams or a malware analysis team.

Partnering with a managed service provider gives you access to a team of cybersecurity experts with different specializations such as security engineers and architects to design networks and systems for security, cryptography experts, pen testers, threat intelligence analysts, project managers for rollouts, cloud security specialists, and forensic experts.

You also get access to extensive cybersecurity services, such as around-the-clock monitoring, penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, managed detection and response, disaster recovery, and incident response. This will ease the burden on your internal IT and security teams by resolving potential issues before they turn into breaches, breaking the ongoing cycle of security gaps.

When Should You Outsource Your IT Services to Atlantic-IT?

Here are a few signs that your IT management may be too much to handle on your own and that you may need the help of the experts at Atlantic-IT:

1. You don’t have real-time monitoring of your IT infrastructure: Without 24/7 real-time monitoring, you’re putting your IT environment at risk. Outsourcing network monitoring and management helps you save time and money, and relieves you of the routine intricacies of the task. Besides, you leverage our team’s expertise to address and resolve the more complex network issues and maintain network health at all times. Your company will no longer have to rally and waste precious resources when there are complications with the system. Instead, you’ll enjoy a completely proactive network that defends against breaches and prevents downtime before you even know about it.
2. You’re not using all your technology to its full potential: Your IT department is just too small to run and manage all your advanced technologies properly, so the return on those investments remains unrealized. The vendors from which you’ve bought the technologies can’t help either because their contracts don’t include operational management. Your infrastructure should be a strategic asset for the business and support its growth and success. As an MSP, we have infrastructure management and optimization expertise, ensuring more reliable performance and a high-quality user experience.
3. Your service levels are not improving, and downtimes are increasing: You seem to be working in crisis mode all the time, so keeping your network up and running leaves no time to make improvements, and dedicating resources to improvement is out of the question since you need all the hands you can get to put out the daily fires. This leads to increased downtime, poor change and event management, and extended resolution times when things go wrong. At Atlantic-IT, we can give you and your team the resources needed to effectively manage your infrastructure, network, or systems to reduce downtimes, improve efficiency and boost productivity.
4. Your costs are escalating, not decreasing: It’s becoming more and more expensive to manage your network in-house because you lack scale in your department. You hire expensive experts to deliver low-end services because you just don’t have the budget to distinguish skills levels. When you work with an MSP like Atlantic-IT, you benefit from paying for the services you need when you need them. We can also help optimize your IT spend, show you how gaps in your system affect your profits, and our predictable pricing helps with budgeting.
5. Your customers complain about not getting the same level of service from you as your competition: Without always looking to improve your infrastructure, it’s hard to keep your competitive edge. You’re starting to fall behind the market in launching new offerings. With Atlantic-IT, you get an insightful partner — an experienced advisor that can smoothly and successfully guide modernization and optimization plans to ensure that you produce remarkable experiences for your customers and stay competitive.

Need to Outsource Your IT Services? Atlantic-IT Can Help!

Outsourcing to a reputable IT services provider helps companies beat the labor shortfall by providing instant access to highly skilled tech talent that can drive resiliency and innovation while significantly reducing out-of-control labor costs.

At Atlantic-IT, we understand the IT challenges that many businesses and CIOs face today. We have a team of highly trained experts in various fields, including IT support, cybersecurity, network monitoring, network installations, cloud computing, mobility solutions, compliance, IT planning and forecasting, and backup and recovery.

Whether you need help filling a skills gap in your organization or want to outsource your whole IT department or some IT functions, Atlantic-IT can help. We offer end-to-end IT services to businesses of all sizes in Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Atlanta, Ohio, North Carolina, and Metro DC. When you partner with us as your managed services provider, we will deliver IT services tailored to meet your unique business needs to help you leverage our expertise to optimize your resources, drive better business results, secure your businesses, achieve your business goals, and stay competitive. Contact us today to schedule a no-cost consultation and discover how we can help you mitigate the tech talent shortage and drive business growth!

Thanks to our colleague, Kenny Riley at Velocity IT in Dallas for his help with this article.