Welcome to Industry 4.0.— aka the Fourth Industrial Revolution — a new way and world of work, where AI, APIs, IoT, IT, and OT converge, and innumerable amounts of data (and, clearly, acronyms) are revolutionizing the way you manufacture, improve, and distribute your products and services.
How ready — and protected — is your company? Well, whether you understand the meaning of the alphabet soup above, or you pay a dedicated in-house IT person or team to do so, your company’s ability to keep pace — and safe — changes almost every minute.
According to the results of a Clark School study at the University of Maryland, computers with Internet access are attacked by hackers roughly every 39 seconds. Unlike those you see on TV or in movies, these aren’t targeted attacks from hackers with a personal axe to grind or rival companies looking for a competitive edge; most are random attacks that use automated scripts to uncover vulnerabilities, and they’re launched indiscriminately at thousands of computers at a time. In fact, the computers used in the study were attacked, on average, 2,244 times a day.
Think your lone IT staffer or small team can keep up and protect your company? If luck is on your side, or the year was pre-2011, sure. The painful reality accompanying Industry 4.0 is that any company whose network is connected to the internet today is at greater risk than at any time in modern history. If you’re a business owner who recognizes how critical it is to protect your infrastructure and the multitudes of data transmitted to and from employees, vendors, customers, and more — congratulations, you’re ahead of many.
However, if you’re hearing (likely from your overwhelmed in-house IT folks) that the best solution to protect your data and keep pace with technology’s massive acceleration is to staff up your IT department, be wary. Ten years ago, that might have been the case. No longer. Here’s why:
Supply v. demand
As smart automation and increasing interconnectivity have come to dominate the machinations of industry around the world, the number of IT platforms, networks, applications, and user needs are ever-expanding — so quickly, in fact, that the technologies are outpacing the supply of professionals that have the specific skills necessary to manage and protect them.
In this Fourth Industrial Revolution, a small team of tech-savvy generalists, aka the single-IT-guy-per-100 users, is no longer enough. Today, the average mid-size company with about 100 employees would need either a small army of tech professionals to cover all the skillsets necessary to navigate, maintain, update, patch, and protect your system’s infrastructure, security, and data — or a unicorn, that one rare beast with the skills to do it all.
Cost v. value
Truth is, the more specific the skillsets you need, the harder those professionals are to find. And in today’s tight labor market, there’s only one thing tougher than finding those unicorns: affording them.
So, say you recognize, at minimum, the value in investing in IT to protect your technology infrastructure, and you’re willing to hire a single cybersecurity specialist. Great. But also … good luck.
Demand for cybersecurity professionals has outpaced supply to such a degree, industry researcher Cybersecurity Ventures recently reported that the number of unfilled cybersecurity jobs grew by 350 percent just between 2013 and 2021, going from a dearth of 1 million to 3.5 million.
How long are you willing to wait to find the right pro? And, equally critical, how much are you willing to pay to get and retain him or her? As of August 2022, the average salary for a cybersecurity specialist in the United States was $109,666 per year, according to Indeed. Want a cloud engineer? Indeed’s survey of working cloud engineers reports that annual pay averages $121,403 per year, with an annual $11,000 cash. And, of course, you and your executive team could make better decisions faster if you had a data analyst to understand and analyze all that data the aforementioned positions protect. That data analyst — their average salary is about $70K, plus bonuses.
Add in benefits, state and federal taxes, and insurance, perhaps a 401K plan, PTO, and you’re looking at a not-modest-chunk out of your organization’s profit margin to bring on even one additional employee.
Rather than committing to an exorbitant, long-term cost or limping along as you are, simply hoping your small in-house team can keep up with Industry 4.0’s accelerated technologies and the increasing vulnerabilities they foster, consider a smarter, safer solution: Contract with a mission-oriented third-party tech service provider.
The benefits of outsourcing technology services — and how to ensure you get them:
- You’ll pay only for what you need. Go ahead, keep your existing IT team if they’re doing a solid job with general upkeep and updates of your infrastructure. Their institutional knowledge is valuable. But where there are gaps — in knowledge, core competencies, or simply manpower and bandwidth — you’ll want to look to an outsourced team that has the breadth and depth of many team members with many specific (but overlapping) skillsets to fill those gaps.
- You’ll get 24/7 service. The word “overlapping” is key in comparing outsourced tech solution providers. Unlike an in-house team, a quality outsourced MSP will never expect you to wait for answers or a problem fix while someone’s out sick or on vacation. Hint: Look for one that not only offers the breadth of specific skillsets you need but also a deep bench of members who share those skillsets, so they’re on top of your systems, always reachable, and able to step in whenever needed — whether your usual contact is home sick or on vacation, or it’s 3 a.m.
- You won’t go broke.Because IT professionals are in such short supply and high demand, they’re an incredibly hot commodity. Poachers are always on the hunt. You can play the game, raising salaries and handing over ever-higher bonuses to keep the few in-house IT pros you have — but for how long? When you outsource for specific tech services, you’ll have one repeatable, predictable payment for a contract period you define. You’ll also get the brainpower and manpower of multiple skilled professionals without being responsible for the cost of multiple large (and ever-increasing) salaries and bonuses.
- You won’t waste time. Say a poacher wins and nabs one of your in-house IT team members. If you have an outsourced team, you’re protected. No extended job vacancy, organizational chaos, or scrambling to find a replacement. You’ll have immediate backup, already familiar with your systems and organization, at the ready. Ditto if your organization needs to quickly ramp up to help meet compliance standards and other demands brought by a big contract, new client, or sudden spike in growth.
- You’ll get more bang for your buck. When comparing managed service providers, dig deep and question relentlessly. Small, stand-alone MSPs can be helpful. Many do a solid job with the general upkeep and updating of your infrastructure, and patching holes a threat actor could exploit. Those are base-level expectations, however. If you’re going to invest in an outsourced team, do your due diligence and compare the costs and offerings between larger and smaller MSPs. Larger MSPs are often well-staffed with multiple professionals who have myriad skillsets and lengthy experience. Either way, look for one backed and bolstered by other business solution services and dedicated to putting your organization’s business objectives – not merely their own technology – first.
In reality, many MSPs do not — and often cannot — concern themselves with your business objectives, outcomes, and goals; they only take responsibility for the technology itself. If you want to not only protect your organization but also navigate and capitalize on this new age of industry, you need a team that takes the strategic direction of your company as its own and can utilize, create, and deliver a variety of tech and other business solutions to support that mission — be it a platform to see your financials in real time, a part-time CIO, and/or a risk management specialist who looks beyond your network to protect the entire ecosystem, including client and vendor processes. Finding one that can customize a solution to meet your organization’s specific immediate needs, as well as its future objectives, is essential.
Not sure what you need? Call Rehman for an initial, objective third-party assessment of your organization’s IT infrastructure, its overall health, and potential vulnerabilities. If you have an idea of what you’re lacking, consider a framework discovery, which is a deeper dive and more robust assessment that includes an MSP perspective to determine whether Rehmann’s tech services would be useful and feasible for you.
Adam Lewan serves as manager of Rehmann’s Technology Solutions, which provides a wide range of technology solutions including managed security, managed IT, managed networks, managed cloud, professional IT consulting, product solutions, and more.