PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff is scheduled for Wednesday, October 9th at 4 AM for much of Northern California. For planning purposes, PG&E suggests customers prepare for outages that could last several days. Please take appropriate actions to ensure the safety of your systems if you are in a targeted shutdown area. See if your area is affected here...

3 Tips to Leverage Your IT Labor Costs

February 7th, 2014 by admin

I'll make a decent bet that your greatest Information Technology costs are not related to hardware and software. In fact, they're probably not related to physical technology at all.

What is Your Greatest IT cost?

Support labor!

A silver analog alarm clock resting on a small pile of money

IT labor costs can be incredibly expensive, especially when an IT Services firm operates on a bill-by-the-hour business model, which is quite normal for outsourced IT service.

These costs are further exacerbated by the plethora of incompetent or inexperienced IT technicians.

If you're considering hiring an outsourced IT Support and Services firm, read on for some important points to consider to best leverage your IT labor costs.

Tips to Leverage Your IT Labor Costs

  1. Go with Experience

We're going to let you in on a dirty IT-industry secret: competent, experienced IT people get better results per hour spent, and consequently, per dollar spent, than the masses of IT newbies flooding the industry today.

The differential between Trainee rates and experienced Network Engineer rates do not reflect reality when compared with actual value. One would expect Trainee rates to hover around 25-50% of a Senior Engineer's rates, when in actuality, they are typically about 60-100%.

In a nutshell, you will be paying the same amount of money (or very close to it) per hour for less experienced IT service as you would for exceptional IT service. And it's almost guaranteed that a more experienced technician will be able to diagnose and fix your issues much faster and for less overall cost than a team of newbies.

When in doubt, go with experience!

  1. Expertise in your Industry and Business-Type

Whether you are a small investment advisory firm, a medium sized law firm, or a burgeoning health clinic, you need an outsourced IT team that knows the ins and outs of your business.

It's not enough for an IT Provider to have "experience" - the team should have specific expertise in your industry and with other businesses of your size/type. Your IT Provider should know your industry-specific concerns before you even have to think about them. This will save you money, time, and loads of stress in the long run.

  1. A Flat-Fee, Insurance-Like Program

Outsourced IT support doesn't have to come in the traditional Bill-by-the-Hour model. With bill-by-the-hour service, where is the Managed Service Provider's incentive to fix your network problems in a timely manner? Where is the incentive for partnership?

Two arms reaching out of monitors, clasped in a handshake

A flat-fee, subscription-based IT Management program covers everything you would expect from outsourced IT service, minus the headaches. Think of flat-fee IT service like an Insurance program. For the same cost every month, you are 100% covered for both proactive IT management and any unforeseen issues and labor expenses. An IT Managed Services firm that operates on a flat-fee model would much rather deliver the most reliable network environment possible and prevent problems from ever happening than spend time and money fixing them.

This proactive, not simply reactive, role in your business' success will save you time and money, and is our best recommendation for leveraging your IT labor costs.


If you're interested in learning more about flat-fee IT service, look no further than ATS Communication.

ATS made history as the first IT Provider to offer such a program and specializes in this insurance-type model. Even better - ATS has been in business over three decades (the longest of any IT Provider in Northern California) and has the experience to handle your unique situation.

ATS Communications is committed to your ongoing success, not the accumulation of time and materials hours. ATS's flat-fee approach includes all service and labor, even emergencies, so you need never worry about Bill-by-the-Hour costs.

ATS Communications provides superior outsourced IT service to the San Francisco Bay Area, the Peninsula, San Mateo County, and San Jose.

Take a look at ATS's Reliable Networks Managed Service Program for more information!

Posted in: Company News