As a business owner, you either handle your IT internally or externally through various IT partners like (MSSPs or MSPs) – and somewhere along the line are your IT managers.
IT Managers can be anyone who oversees your company’s IT operations – that could be your CIO, it could be your outsourced managed IT partner, it could be your nephew who you hired to make sure all of your data is backed up, heck, it could even be you!
As your business grows, your IT needs will grow, too, so having someone who is responsible for the continued operations of your IT infrastructure becomes increasingly critical to your company’s continued operations and growth.
With that in mind, let’s dive into the world of IT managers – who they are, what they do, and how they can impact your business!
So… What Is An IT Manager?
Information Technologymanagers, or IT managers, are anyone in an organization who is responsible for the overall functioning of that organization’s IT operations. At their core, this person is not only responsible for the nuts and bolts of storing data, handling permissions, securing firewalls, and ensuring constant internet support, but they also shoulder significant amounts of strategic planning, operational efficiency and financial streamlining.
IT managers can be anyone from the sole proprietor of a mom and pop shop – ensuring that the company can receive digital payments, that the registers are tied to accounting software properly, even making sure that wifi works in the store – or they can be CTOs or CITOs of multinational organizations, setting IT strategy and goals that are carried out globally.
With an increasing reliance on digital technology to drive profit for businesses across the globe, having an effective, reliable IT manager who can make sure that your company’s IT is running around the clock at optimal capacity is not only a rarity but a massive advantage to any company.
It’s this worldwide reliance on IT managers to make our many gadgets tick that is leading to a huge boom in IT management as a career path. A study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the employment of IT managers is projected to grow 11% from 2020 to 2030 – a rate of growth outstripping every other career on the planet!
These numbers signal what we already know – the work of an effective IT manager is invaluable to businesses in the year 2023.
How Much Does An IT Manager Cost?
Prepare the fainting couch because when it comes to hiring an IT manager…well, let’s just say valuable people don’t come cheap.
According to the BLS, the average IT manager salary in the U.S. is $121,116 per year as of 2022. That means that an IT manager will cost you a good amount of money to hire them in-house – for many businesses, they will be amongst the highest-paid members of your management team.
It makes sense, though. Considering the importance of a robust and reliable IT system – as well as the competitive advantage your IT systems can give you under the guidance of a good IT manager – IT managers arguably have the most important job in the organization.
If paying over $100,000 to hire an IT manager is too expensive for your business, that’s where outsourcing comes in. Managed IT services can help fill in the IT gaps externally where large organizations hire internally.
Contact us today and we can act as a de facto IT manager for your business. We can offer all the benefits of your own personal IT manager – without the crushing cost.
What Does An IT Manager Actually Do?
As we’ve already covered, IT managers are responsible for ALL aspects of an organization’s IT, from securing data with a firewall to re-setting Ricky from accounting’s password for the 930,000th time.
Here’s a peek at some of the key responsibilities of an IT manager:
Project Management: IT managers often oversee tech projects, ensuring they’re completed on time and within budget. This includes bringing together various stakeholders to identify objectives and follow through on them on a schedule.
Strategic Planning: Tech is constantly changing, and to stay relevant, you must continually evolve. IT managers can identify coming opportunities and potential threats – so you can stay on top of the competition.
Cybersecurity: Protecting data not only becomes more important every year, but the tools hackers and thieves have to access your data only becomes more sophisticated as well. Hiring an IT manager who knows what they’re doing can protect you from breaches that can bring your company to its knees in just a few clicks.
IT Team Leadership: Managing the sometimes eccentric personalities in the world of IT is a skill in and of itself. The best IT managers are able to harness the various skills and abilities of their team to create an IT network that is better than the sum of its parts.
IT Manager? Or C-Suite Level Executive?
There’s an argument to be made that – given how important IT is to the success of the modern business – that an IT manager is more than just someone who protects your data and runs your servers. In many ways, IT managers are now empowered to make business decisions that can impact the entirety of a company in ways that others can’t.
When it comes to what IT managers do beyond just the nuts and bolts of IT management, they play a pivotal role in shaping their organization’s technological trajectory. A clever, skilled, experienced IT manager can save companies tons of money in efficiency savings, as well as generate more revenue through more robust IT systems.
The result of a good IT manager cannot be understated – leading IT analyst firm Gartner reports that companies with effective IT management report a stunning 20% higher profit than competitors!
The reality is that any company without an IT manager is putting themselves at a serious disadvantage amongst their competitors – no matter the industry.