When Your IT Person Leaves: A Colorado Business Owner’s Decision Guide

Losing employees is never fun.
But losing your one “IT person”? That can stop your business in its tracks.

Losing your one “IT guy”? This can bring the business to a screeching halt.

That’s exactly the pain that many Denver businesses feel when their “IT guy” leaves, and it can leave small businesses scrambling with a million questions.

• How do we create new user accounts?
• How do we keep our environment running?
• What the heck is Azure and what do we have running up there?
• Who is Cisco, and why do we keep sending him thousands of dollars a year?

The IT guy (or gal) is almost always the only one with the knowledge skills to do key tasks that keep the business running and safe from external attacks.  

Business owners are faced with a choice when they lose that key IT resource, and there are pros and cons of each option.

I built this guide to help you decide what is the best path to take when your IT resource departs from your business in Denver.

By the end, you should have a clear understanding of your options and enough info to lead towards a decision, and the questions you need to ask yourself.

The IT Departure Dilemma: Why Colorado Businesses Struggle

Employees come and go, but the long-time IT Admin is one of the hardest to replace.

As Liam Neeson shares, they have “a specific set of skills” that helps everyone at the company do their jobs seamlessly. As technology continues to expand, the chances of having great team members leaving for new opportunities will continue to rise, leaving you in a potentially tough position.

There’s also often the long-time IT individual who simply retires after many years at the company, or even emergency departures due to major life events.

When you lose that person, it’s not just a valued teammate that’s walking out the door, it’s a heck of a lot more that can impact the business.

• Network architecture knowledge
• Standard operating procedures (if documentation wasn’t built)
• Key vendor/solution knowledge
• Compliance/security expertise
• Delays in any key projects under way
• Passwords or encryption key information

These are not easy things to pick up the pieces for.

If you’re a business owner in Denver and find yourself here, you need to quickly decide the right path forward, and we’ll start with the option most businesses think of.do, you’ve got a few options—and each has trade-offs. Let’s break them down.

Option 1: Hire a New Internal IT Person

Most business owners start here. Hiring someone new feels like the easiest fix—keep things in-house and mThis is what you know, and what comes to mind first.

Hire another person internally = problem solved.

You’re used to having someone on staff that runs your IT, so the immediate thought is to keep the status quo. There are absolutely things that are desirable with this option.

Pros & Cons for Hiring a New Internal IT Administrator
Pros of Hiring Internally	Cons of Hiring Internally
Dedicated resource who knows your business	Denver’s competitive IT job market
On-site presence (important for manufacturing, medical practices)	Limited expertise vs. team of specialists
Direct control over priorities	Vacation, sick time, and coverage challenges
Cultural fit with your Colorado team	Training and certification costs
	Single point of failure

Advantages of hiring a new Internal IT Administrator

• 100% control of how you prioritize their time
• Full-time on-site availability for equipment and user support
• Ability to learn/know any custom or specific hardware or software solutions that your business relies on, which might be something any outsourced company excludes from support
• Having them be a part of the culture (coming to the company Rockies game or joining for company happy hour at Denver Beer Co.)

With an internal hire, you’d be able to turn that role into exactly what the organization needs best.

This can be a little more challenging depending on the managed services providers you might speak to, so understanding truly what you need is important. If you’re used to just yelling loudly when you’re having a tech issue and your IT admin comes running, there’s no other solution that will provide that instant need like an in-house employee.

You can also have this person perform tasks that may not be 100% around IT needs, such as compliance, training, or other areas where the business could use some technical expertise. Having an in-house individual may be required based on regulatory needs as well, if your team might need to access customer systems and you’re required to only allow that access to W2 employees, so there are absolutely reasons to keep this in-house.

Disadvantages of hiring a new Internal IT Administrator

• High salary for qualified IT professionals (average salary of $91.5K/year for IT Sys Admin in Denver)
• Difficult to find all the skillsets needed in a single person to fully manage IT for a business
  • End user support
  • Network support
  • Cybersecurity expertise
  • Cloud & server administration
  • Backup & Disaster Recovery Experience
• Single point of failure for all technical needs
• One set of hands – Can only ever be working on one thing at a time, so if there are emergencies happening at once, needs will have to be prioritized
• Knowledge limitations – may know how to manage systems, but lack skills to implement new solutions or upgrade major systems
• Risk of continued turnover in role
• Difficulty in interviewing for a technical role when your team is not technical – can be very difficult to predict how competent a candidate is if the interviewer lack the technical background themselves
• Recruitment costs
• Training challenges to bring them up to speed on current environment
• Fixed salary & benefits costs

In places like Denver, it’s not always easy to find that perfect candidate, so it may take a lot longer or cost a lot more to find a single individual with all the required skillsets or abilities to do everything needed in the role. Not to say you can’t find a unicorn, but it might be a bit more challenging to find the right person in your pay range.

For many companies, when you lose that key internal resource, the difficulties of backfilling often present the perfect opportunity to evaluate moving to an outsourced Managed Services Provider. This is a fundamental shift, and there are also pros and cons of moving in this direction, which leads us to option 2

Option 2: Outsourcing to a Colorado Managed Service Provider (MSP)

The Managed Service Provider (MSP) industry has rapidly evolved in the last ten years, making it more and more attractive for small and medium-sized businesses to augment or replace their in-house IT resources. An MSP is basically an outsourced IT Department, where you get all the roles and services you need under a fixed monthly agreement.

There are things to consider, both positive and negative, that should be considered when looking at transitioning to an MSP.

Pros & Cons for Moving to an MSP
Pros of Moving to an MSP	Cons of Moving to an MSP
Team of specialists vs. individual generalist	Less direct control
24/7 coverage and monitoring	Potential cultural misalignment
Predictable & Scalable monthly costs	May seem more expensive initially
Access to enterprise-level tools and expertise	Requires clear communication processes
Compliance and security expertise
Business continuity during staff changes

Advantages of moving to a Managed Service Provider (MSP)

• Team of individuals supporting your various tech needs (Cyber specialists focused on security, PC techs on end user needs, etc.)
• 24/7 monitoring & support – many MSPs are built for round-the-clock coverage, where your team can access support any time of day or night
• Scalable costs that grow and shrink as your business changes – MSPs often price per user or per device, so as your business grows, the price incrementally grows versus a whole new salary hire to keep up with the demands
• Enterprise-level tools & expertise – MSPs get to work across many clients and industries, so their team members build incredible amounts of expertise. Small businesses can tap that expertise, versus needing internal resources to learn how to do each task the first time they encounter it
• Compliance & security – Top-tier MSPs have deep compliance expertise, and can help ensure the services you have help you achieve and maintain compliance for your specific industry
• Business continuity during staff changes – You get out of the business of hiring and training, the MSP takes care of that internally

MSPs can be a great solution for businesses of all sizes, but there are some components that could be seen as disadvantages.

Disadvantages of moving to a Managed Service Provider (MSP)

• Less direct control – MSPs standardize where they can, so depending on the MSP, you may have limited ability to veer from their standard supported solutions or practices
• Upfront costs & time – Onboarding a new MSP often comes with one-time fees and the time it takes to onboard tools, configure alerting, document processes, etc. Depending on the timeline and the MSP’s practice, your business may need support faster than an MSP can provide
• 3^rd Party Solution Expertise Limitations – MSPs don’t support every solution in existence, so if your business needs advanced management and support of an application that was built in-house or is industry-specific, it may be challenging to find resources externally to support it
• Onsite availability – MSPs handle onsite support in different ways, with some able to provide dedicated resources on a recurring or as-needed basis, and others going to a strictly remote support model. Learning what options your potential MSP provides is important to ensure expectations are aligned with their service
• Long-term contracts – This could be both a pro and con, but many MSPs only provide annual or multi-year contracts. This helps them staff their teams properly, but may not align with the flexibility needed for your business.

It’s not to say these disadvantages are deal breakers for most businesses, rather things to consider when weighing the options.

If your business can handle scheduled onsite support visits, this should likely not be an issue, but if your business needs to be able to get to the server room in under 30 seconds flat, then outsourced IT might not be the preferred solution, or a co-managed services structure might be best (check out our guide on Co-Managed IT vs. Fully Outsourced IT).

The third option, which often gets ignored but is worth mentioning, is almost the plan of no action, but this is the highest risk plan of all.

Option 3: Distribute IT Among Existing Staff

This option should be used very sparingly, and often is the option used when a small company is in a staffing and cost reduction time. This is where the key IT and Cybersecurity tasks are shifted to other team members to complete, which does provide some short-term advantages.

Advantages of Distributing IT Tasks Among Existing Staff

• Immediate cost savings
• Existing staff potentially already know the systems being supported
• Immediate “solution”

The cost savings are always the primary driver with this scenario, which often blinds you of the actual costs of this approach.

Disadvantages of Distributing IT Tasks Among Existing Staff

• Lack of technical skills to sufficiently support the users or business
• Opportunity costs of higher-end staff focusing on IT instead of driving the business forward
• Tech debt is building up without a dedicated focus on maintaining, improving, and upgrading systems
• Cybersecurity risk – if your primary role is to complete other necessary job functions, you are not dedicating your efforts to cybersecurity, which can lead the company into risky scenarios

Unless you’re trying to weather a temporary financial storm, this option should really be a last resort, as the downsides are potentially very costly, beyond just the short-term salary savings.

Instead of enjoying your Saturday on the slopes in Breckenridge, you may now find yourself trying to troubleshoot why your server is down, which is never how the owner should be spending their time on a powder day.

Decision-Making Questions for Your Denver Business

If your Denver business has just lost its key IT resource, these are some questions you need to ask yourselves to help determine the best path forward:

Technical Complexity & Expertise Needs

• How specialized are your IT needs? Do you rely on custom software or industry-specific applications that require deep expertise?
• Can one person realistically possess all the skills you need (end user support, network management, cybersecurity, cloud administration, backup/DR)?
• How critical is 24/7 monitoring and after-hours support to your business operations?

Financial Considerations

• Can your budget accommodate a $91.5K+ salary plus benefits, training, and recruitment costs?
• Would predictable monthly costs be more manageable than fixed salary obligations?
• What’s the financial impact if your new hire leaves within 1-2 years and you need to repeat the process?

Business Continuity & Risk Management

• How much downtime can your business tolerate when your IT person is sick, on vacation, or handling another emergency?
• What happens if multiple urgent IT issues occur simultaneously?
• Do you have the internal technical knowledge to effectively interview and assess IT candidates?

Compliance & Security Requirements

• Does your industry require dedicated W-2 employees to access customer systems or data?
• How critical is cybersecurity expertise to protecting your business from threats?
• Do you need help achieving or maintaining specific compliance standards (HIPAA, PCI, etc.)?

Operational Preferences

• How important is having someone physically on-site vs. available remotely?
• Do you need your IT person to perform non-IT tasks like training or compliance work?
• Are you comfortable with standardized solutions, or do you need highly customized IT approaches?

Growth & Scalability

• Is your business planning to grow significantly in the next 1-3 years?
• Would you need to hire additional IT staff as you scale?
• How important is flexibility to adjust your IT support level as business needs change?

Cultural & Control Factors

• How important is it to have your IT person participate in company culture and team events?
• Do you need direct, 100% control over how IT priorities are set and executed?
• Are you willing to work within an MSP’s standard practices, or do you require complete autonomy?

Final Takeaway

Losing a key team member is never easy, but we try our best to make it as smooth as possible for your business with whatever path makes the most sense.

If you want to explore leveraging outsourced Managed IT Services to enhance your business in Colorado, our team would be happy to guide you through building the right service package to get your business the support it needs.

There’s no one-size-fits-all here, so we start with a conversation and educate you on how we can help. If you want to learn more, Contact Dataprise Colorado, and we’ll get you connected with one of our experts today.