In-house, outsourced or co-managed IT: which to choose?

The three models

In-house IT: an employed IT person (or a small team) manages everything. Maximum proximity and deep business knowledge, but dependence on one person, limited coverage during absences, and the full cost of a qualified position.

Outsourced IT (managed services): a provider manages all or part of your IT within a contractual framework, with professional tools. Broader coverage, predictable costs, but you must accept delegating and demand documentation.

Co-managed IT: your IT person keeps day-to-day control and user contact; the provider brings monitoring, backups, cybersecurity and reinforcement on projects. This model works well when roles and responsibilities are clearly divided.

Comparing honestly

• Cost: an in-house person costs a full salary; managed services are billed per user or per device, within a defined scope.
• Coverage: one person can cover neither absences nor every domain (network, security, cloud, compliance).
• Dependence: without documentation, knowledge leaves with the person, whether internal or external.
• Continuity: if someone leaves, who takes back the keys, and how fast?

When managed services make sense

• No internal IT person, or a single person stretched across everything.
• A need to professionalize: verifiable backups, baseline security, documentation.
• A preference for more predictable costs, with a flat fee for a defined scope and out-of-scope work priced in advance.

When to keep it in-house

• Highly specific business applications requiring daily presence.
• Enough scale to fund several complementary IT roles.
• Even then, co-management remains useful for monitoring, security and projects.