How IT outsourcing saves money for London businesses
How much does outsourcing IT save a London business? A plain-English breakdown of in-house versus outsourced costs and the figures behind it.
IT outsourcing saves money mainly by replacing the salaries, overheads and tooling of an in-house IT team with a fixed monthly fee, and by moving security and expertise from a capital cost to a running cost you can budget. Whether it saves your business money depends on what you spend now, so compare like for like.
What IT outsourcing means
IT outsourcing is delegating IT functions to a third-party provider. That can include managed IT services, technical support, cyber security, or software development. It lets a business concentrate on its core work while someone else supplies specialist skills.
There are three broad models:
- Onshore: the provider is in the same country, with close proximity and easy communication.
- Nearshore: the provider is in a nearby country, often with similar time zones and working culture.
- Offshore: the provider is further afield, which can lower the price but widens the distance.
This article focuses on onshore support for London businesses.
Where the savings come from
Labour costs. A full-time in-house team carries salaries, benefits and employment taxes. Outsourcing gives you access to a team of professionals on a fixed fee instead.
Overheads. An in-house department also needs equipment, software licences, tooling and the time to manage them. A provider spreads those costs across its clients.
Training. Keeping staff current on technology and security takes continuous investment. With an outsourced service, keeping engineers’ skills up to date is the provider’s job, not yours.
Security. Round-the-clock detection and response is expensive to staff yourself. Buying it as part of a managed service gives a small business cover it could not otherwise afford. See managed detection and response.
Predictability. A fixed per-user fee is easier to budget than a series of call-outs. That matters to a finance director more than a lower headline rate that comes apart in the small print.
Access to expertise and tools
A provider employs people with depth in networks, cloud, Microsoft 365 and security, and has the tooling to match. A small organisation gets access to capabilities that would be unreasonable to buy on its own, which narrows the gap with larger competitors.
Check the numbers for your business
Savings are not automatic. Before you decide, compare:
- the full cost of your current setup, including salaries, licences, tooling, hardware and the cost of downtime
- what the provider’s fee includes and what is billed separately
- whether security, backup and out-of-hours cover are in the price
- how the price changes as headcount grows
Our questions to ask an IT support provider and guide to IT support vs managed services help with the comparison.
What outsourcing costs with Lanmark
Lanmark charges per user or per device, whichever is fewer, and never per call. Lanmark Total is £55 to £65 per user per month ex VAT (about £55 per user at 25 users) on a 12 month term, and includes:
- unlimited support, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm
- a named senior technician
- an annual IT plan and budget
- 24x7x365 managed detection and response (MDR), identity threat detection and response (ITDR) and security operations centre (SOC) cover
- Microsoft 365 backup
- security awareness training
Our own service desk figures: 87% of calls answered in 15 seconds, an 11 minute average response, a 26 minute average resolution, 74% fixed at first contact and 99% customer satisfaction. These come from Lanmark’s service desk system.
Lanmark Core and Flex suit smaller or less regular needs. Core is a fixed number of monthly hours with security, backup and training as add-ons, on a 12 month term. Flex is prepaid hours in packs of 10, 20, 40 or 80 (£1,250, £2,300, £4,200 and £7,600), with no contract. 24x7 support is available on request. See IT support packs.
Lanmark is a Microsoft Direct CSP, so we buy licences directly from Microsoft rather than through an intermediary.
Looking ahead
Two trends will shape outsourced IT. Cloud services keep making IT management easier to scale. And AI is likely to make support faster, which we cover in the future of AI in IT support.
Where to go next
If you are weighing up an outsourced model, start with our IT outsourcing in London page, or read about the IT support portfolio. To compare your current costs against a per-user model, contact Lanmark or call 020 7123 4910.
Common questions
What does IT outsourcing cost for a London business?
It depends on the provider and the model. Lanmark Total is £55 to £65 per user per month ex VAT, about £55 per user at 25 users, and includes unlimited support, 24x7x365 security monitoring and Microsoft 365 backup on a 12 month term.
What is the difference between IT outsourcing and break-fix IT support?
A break-fix supplier arrives when something has already gone wrong and charges for the time to fix it. There is no monitoring between visits and no predictability in cost. A managed provider maintains and monitors your systems continuously for a fixed monthly fee.
What is the difference between outsourced IT and managed IT services?
Outsourced IT usually means transferring responsibility for the whole IT function to an external partner. Managed IT services can mean a defined set of services supplied alongside an in-house team, such as managed backup or a managed firewall.
How quickly can a new provider take over our IT?
It depends on the size and complexity of the estate. Lanmark uses SmoothSwitch, a structured migration programme, to hand over from an existing provider.
Where to go next
About this guide
Written by Lanmark, Lanmark Limited, 36 Basepoint, Victoria Road, Dartford, Kent DA1 5FS. Published , last updated .
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