@scottalanmiller if it can't be measured it can't be improved. But a company has to care otherwise, it's kinda a moot point. I realize I maybe looking outside of IT/MSP and in general and I'm trying not to miss your points because they definitely are valid.

Humby I think there is a reason and place for both. In someway, both are symbiotic to each other. A company must have ways to prove if either of the two are adding value, efficient and effective at least at the core, but each company may have other categories that "grade" someone or an entity and if they even like what they are getting offered.

I'm always open to hear how it would be better i'm not a debate monkey, I'm more of an "enlighten me" kinda guy. For me personally, knowing all the moving parts and knowing how to properly use them is more important. That's wisdom. Companies usually pay for wisdom more so than only knowledge, in general.

A person to person debacle between FTE vs a MSP (single individual in this case) is going to definitely be between efficiency and more importantly being effective. You could have 100 team member MSP and be efficient, but are they effective?

It will always be a philosophical difference and challenge, which is the thing is we want. In life there is rarely a one thing is always the best thing always till eternity. But that is what makes us all better, being able to adapt and change.

I totally agree with you in a case like my own, because the client I have can't afford a FTE and if he could the company would be ran totally different. So being a MSP to him saves him $$$. I know that and agree with that.

However I think what really needs to be explained so it's not a quick answer is what is more detail on what is offered vs what isn't offered between a FTE and MSP. One can't make a decision if it is better or worse with just one view.

@scottalanmiller Which I agree to, which is what we have done.

MSP's won't always have equal or greater scale than a FTE. I think it would be better to say "sometimes". Perfect example, if I started a new MSP start up today, from scratch, there is no way I wouldn't cost more than an established and furnished MSP.

We're talking from scratch! If I have no hardware, software, tools, other human resources to delegate to, and no processes in place other than what I came out of school with and what I picked up from working various jobs. It would cost WAYYY more to get established.

@black3dynamite just depends. If I throw this as a curveball to the situation, a Facebook engineer handles between 100k-1 Million servers on average. So surely he should get paid more right? But that isn't always the case.

@scottalanmiller it just depends. One harsh example would be cabling. If you hired a contractor, msp, or someone who is the IT (locally and FTE), who do you think would end up being cheaper? Always the local if he/she has done it before. The labor, equipment and resources cost always sky rockets!

@obsolesce IMHO it depends on the scale, financial health and overall understanding of a company at every level. I can say if your a startup with 1-5 people, having outsourced IT is smart. I can say up to 100 staff, having outsourced IT in different roles/capacities is smart. But it all depends on the financial health of the company.

I agree with Scott as far as the mindset of a business and what steps they should take to focus on the priorities and "make it happen". But if you have little budget, little can be done in some scenarios until you grow and have cash flow to support it.

I have possibly opposing views. When you read from people like Tim Ferris and such, it is very applicable to create an environment that most of your staff aren't even in the same building, state or country. It feels like it isn't smart, but in some cases it is and some it is a challenge.

In our company fleshing out 3rd party HR has been on the table for many years. I even at one point suggested 3rd party finance account manager. The thought of having a "right vs wrong" isn't going to work for these scenarios, it's more of knowing you have options and which one suits the situation best.

In my company we still have "insta-hires" which baffles my mind. But we also have too many word docs and spreadsheets that effectively "on paper" (no pun intended) seem to work but due to scale and experience over the years is a hit or miss. While I do like jumping the bandwagon on having metrics (like Google) for almost anything, I do agree that if you don't measure something you can't improve it, but honestly if you blatantly don't want to measure it, then it is destined forever to never improve.

I wish we could afford a sweet HR system but often your left with options that are expensive that often cost more than Windows! Sure you can go the open source route or even free (SAAS) route but they all bring pro's and con's.

You could use pingtest to see a "quality" of your line speed. Makes a difference if your bouncing all around for unnecessary hops to get to location.

@jackcpickup Pingtest looks specifically at the quality of your ping to a destination. Speedtest shows throughput between two points.

Scott I came across one a while back, but I can't remember the name. If I can I will find and post.

@scottalanmiller I totally agree, but every company can't afford an outside firm on top of an internal person/team at same time in the scale I'm in.

I have often looked at using a 3rd party for not only the finance and HR. Get's expensive and some functions don't get performed with a 3rd party which leaves you still to fill a gap or take it upon yourself.

Totally doable, in 5 and maybe 10 man companies but when you get hit with dose of growth and you can't effectively scale, it comes back to haunt.
#ghostlybooooooo

On and Offboarding is very labor intensive and if it's not that's possibly because your team may have streamlined the experience. However, every business by far isn't streamlined. That is a fact.

And I see everyone's point now. Here is a link that brought up some thought for me:

https://www.clearpathit.com/the-risks-of-running-windows-xp-for-healthcare-organizations

https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/running-windows-xp-means-you-are-non-compliant-and-open-to-liability/

It's not the first time I have had bad thought's about this client and their infrastructure but it does make me wonder should we continue to use certain hardware.

Those older systems have been patched as far as they can go for the firmware. The OS is no longer Windows XP, it's Windows 10 and eventually they will have a Windows Server.

I see your point also Scott because I've even considered them just moving over to Chrome OS / Neverware since the systems were tested and worked fine for it. In their use case they don't have much data to store and typically have little to no idea where data resides in some cases. They don't rely heavily on Microsoft other than maybe Word or Excel. Even then, those things can be done on O365.

My thought's would be I believe totally focused on the CPU and the Firmware specifically. Those old clunker 5.5's are past their prime but once cleaned up and a new hard drive and ram put in them they run significantly better now than they did in their day.

Well with the Intel fiasco with the cpu's, what's the likely chance they will update a system such as a Gateway profile 5.5? For a small non profit I am working with they had half of their existing systems running Windows XP and a hodgepodge of 7 and 8, 8.1.

I have installed Windows 10 and will be finishing up their deployment with a few months.

Just wondering as I'm not sure if there is an actionable age limit a computer has to be up to remain compliant.

@scottalanmiller how do you not have VPN now?

Looks good so far