Eight months, 47 applications, zero hires
A managing director from Saxony-Anhalt recently told me how he spent eight months looking for an IT administrator. 47 applications came in. Three candidates made the shortlist. All three declined – because a large corporation in the neighbouring city offered 20% more, including four days of home office and a company car.
149,000 IT positions are unfilled in Germany. The average vacancy period is almost eight months. And even if you find someone, salary expectations have risen by 15-25% over the past three years. For an experienced IT administrator you now quickly pay 55,000 to 70,000 euros gross – plus ancillary costs, training, workplace and what economists charmingly call "opportunity costs": holidays, sick leave, onboarding.
43% of all SMEs have no dedicated IT specialist at all. In Saxony-Anhalt, where we at Ovarna work with exactly these companies every day, the share is probably even higher. IT is done "on the side" by someone who actually has a different job. And we all know how well things work that are done "on the side".
The alternative nobody likes to talk about
Managed IT services still have an image problem in Germany. Many business owners associate them with the external IT guy who drops by every few weeks, fixes something and writes a hefty invoice. This break-fix model is indeed problematic. But it has about as much in common with modern managed services as a rotary phone has with a smartphone.
Modern managed services mean: continuous support, proactive round-the-clock monitoring, agreed response times, predictable monthly costs. You don't get one generalist, you get access to a whole team of specialists – security experts, cloud architects, network professionals – that your single IT administrator could never replace, no matter how good they are.
Because that's the real problem with the one-person IT department: one human can't know everything. Cybersecurity, cloud architecture, network infrastructure, Microsoft 365 administration, backup strategies, compliance – those are six different disciplines, and something is constantly changing in every single one of them. Nobody can keep up with that alone.
What it costs – and what it saves
Let's do an honest calculation for a company with 50 employees.
An internal IT administrator costs you 77,000 to 105,000 euros per year all-in. That includes salary, employer contributions, training, workplace and a share of recruiting costs. Not included: the loss of productivity when they're on holiday or sick. Not included: the expertise they don't have because they are, after all, a generalist.
A managed services package for 50 employees typically ranges from 30,000 to 72,000 euros per year, depending on scope. For that you get a team instead of an individual, no downtime due to holidays or illness, 24/7 monitoring and immediate scalability when your company grows.
It's not always the cheapest solution. But often the smartest one.
Hybrid instead of black and white
It doesn't have to be either-or. For many companies a combination is the best way.
A popular model: an internal IT coordinator – this doesn't have to be a full-time IT person, it can be a technically minded employee – acts as the point of contact for colleagues and coordinates the collaboration with the external provider. They know the business processes, understand internal needs and translate between business and IT. The heavy technical work, round-the-clock monitoring and specialist topics are handled by the external partner.
Another model: internal basic IT for first-level support and daily administration, supplemented by external specialists for security, cloud and projects. That way you keep control of day-to-day operations but have access to expertise you could never afford in-house.
Finding the right partner
And this is where it gets crucial. Because a bad managed services partner is worse than none at all. What should you look for?
Transparency. If a provider can't name clear prices or only phrases SLAs as "best effort", that's a warning sign. Good partners disclose what's included and what costs extra. Full stop.
References. Ask for companies of similar size and industry that you can call. Not logo collections on the website, but real conversations with real customers.
Exit strategy. A good partner doesn't lock you in through proprietary systems or missing documentation. They document everything so that you could theoretically switch at any time. Paradoxically, customers stay longest with such partners – precisely because they don't have to, but want to.
Scalability. Can the partner grow with you when you go from 50 to 100 employees? Or will you then be too big for them?
The transition – without chaos
If you decide on a managed services partner, plan the transition carefully. The most important steps: create documentation (network diagram, server list, credentials), define requirements (What is business-critical? Which response times do you need?) and plan a transition phase of four to eight weeks in which old and new operations run in parallel.
The first weeks will be bumpy. Every change is. But after two to three months you have an IT setup that is more professional, more reliable and often cheaper than what you had before.
It won't ease up
The IT skills shortage won't solve itself. Student numbers in IT subjects are stagnating, digitalisation is accelerating, and competition for talent is getting tougher. SMEs that wait for the perfect candidate to show up may wait forever.
The pragmatic solution: accept reality and look for a model that fits your company. Whether purely external, hybrid or with an internal focus – that depends on your situation. The main thing is to stop waiting for a miracle.
*Which IT model fits your company? We'll advise you with no obligation. Book a conversation*
