Should a Manufacturing Company Hire Internal IT or Outsource to an MSP?

Honestly, under about 50 employees a full-time internal IT hire rarely pencils out once you add taxes, benefits, tooling, and coverage gaps to the salary. Manufacturers with no IT staff usually do better with a managed provider, and manufacturers that already have an IT person should look hard at co-managed IT before hiring a second.

The question sounds binary, but it isn’t. Manufacturers really have three models to choose from: build an internal IT department, outsource everything to a managed IT provider, or run a co-managed setup where an internal person and an MSP split the work. The right answer depends on your headcount, how much a stopped production line costs you per hour, and whether you already have someone good in the seat.

What does internal IT actually cost?

The most common mistake is comparing a salary against an MSP invoice. A salary is the starting point, not the total. A real internal IT budget includes:

Payroll taxes and benefits on top of base pay
Recruiting costs, and the risk of a bad hire in a role you can’t easily evaluate
Ongoing training to keep skills current
The security, monitoring, and backup tooling that person needs to do the job, licensed separately
Outside specialists for anything beyond one person’s expertise
The cost of coverage gaps every time that person is out

Stack all of that against a managed agreement. Braintek’s pricing lands at $150 to $250 per device and $15 to $35 per mailbox each month, with the tooling, monitoring, and security stack already included. For most manufacturers under about 50 employees, the fully loaded internal number loses that comparison, and it’s not close.

How many skills are you really hiring for?

Look at what a single internal IT hire at a mid-size manufacturer is expected to cover: Microsoft 365, networking, firewalls and cybersecurity, servers, cloud platforms, backups, CAD workstations running AutoCAD or SOLIDWORKS, warehouse Wi-Fi, and every vendor relationship in between.

That’s not one job. It’s five or six specialties wearing one badge. The people who genuinely cover all of it are rare and priced accordingly, and the ones you can afford will be strong in two or three areas and improvising in the rest. An MSP flips that math: you get access to a team where someone actually specializes in each layer, without paying for each specialist full time.

What happens when your one IT person is unavailable?

This is the argument that matters most on a production floor. One internal employee means one point of failure. When they’re sick, on vacation, in training, or already buried in a different emergency, your coverage is zero, and outages don’t check the calendar first.

An MSP answers the phone every business day regardless of who’s out. At Braintek, calls reach a live person in about 60 seconds, backed by staff in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and the Philippines, so a single absence never takes your support down with it.

Here’s a fast way to measure your exposure. List the five systems that stop production or shipping when they fail, your ERP, the domain controller, the warehouse wireless, whatever they are for you. For each one, ask: do at least two people know how to support this today? Every “no” is a single point of failure you’re currently accepting.

Already have an IT person? That’s what co-managed is for

If you have a good internal IT employee, the answer usually isn’t to replace them. Co-managed IT keeps that person, and the institutional knowledge they’ve built, while the MSP fills what one person can’t cover: help desk overflow, after-hours and vacation coverage, cybersecurity tooling and monitoring, escalation for hard networking and server problems, and project capacity. Your internal person gets to focus on the systems closest to production instead of drowning in password resets.

We’ve written a full breakdown of how to choose between the outsourced models in fully managed vs. co-managed IT. It’s framed for construction companies, but the decision logic is identical for a plant.

So which model should you pick?

No internal IT at all: fully managed. One provider, one predictable monthly number, no single point of failure. This is Braintek’s core fit, typically companies around 10 to 50 employees.
One solid internal IT person: co-managed. Keep them, fill the gaps around them. This is usually the right call for larger manufacturers.
Downtime is very expensive: whichever model you choose, weight coverage and specialization heavily. The more a stopped line costs per hour, the less acceptable one-person coverage becomes.

Braintek has supported Texas businesses since 2002, including manufacturers in Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth that need remote support most days and someone at the plant when it counts. If you want a no-pressure read on which model fits your operation, the form below is the fastest way to get one.

Want a straight answer for your plant?

Tell us your headcount, current IT setup, and the systems your production floor depends on. We'll tell you which model actually fits, even if the answer is keeping the person you already have and filling gaps around them.

FAQs

At what size does a full internal IT hire start to make sense for a manufacturer?

There's no magic number, but below roughly 50 employees a dedicated hire is hard to justify once you count the full cost of employment plus the tools that person needs. Even above that size, many manufacturers keep one internal person and pair them with an MSP rather than building a full department.

Isn't an internal person faster because they're on site?

For hands-on hardware issues, sometimes. But most day-to-day problems, password resets, email, software errors, and monitoring alerts, resolve remotely, and one person can only work one ticket at a time. A team answering the phone in 60 seconds usually resolves the average issue faster than a single busy employee walking the floor.

We already have an IT person. Do we have to choose between them and an MSP?

No, and you usually shouldn't. Co-managed IT keeps your internal person on the systems they know best while the MSP covers overflow, after-hours emergencies, cybersecurity, and vacation backup. It's supplementing a hire, not replacing one.

What does outsourced IT cost compared to hiring?

Braintek's managed IT runs $150 to $250 per device and $15 to $35 per mailbox monthly, all-in, including the security, monitoring, and backup tooling an internal hire would need purchased separately. Compare that total against the fully loaded cost of an employee, not just the salary line.

Can an MSP really support shop-floor systems like CAD workstations and warehouse Wi-Fi?

A generalist MSP may struggle, which is why manufacturers should ask specifically. Braintek supports AutoCAD and SOLIDWORKS workstations, warehouse wireless, and production-adjacent systems for manufacturers across Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, with onsite dispatch when remote support isn't enough.

What is the "two people per critical system" test?

List your five most critical systems, the ones that stop production or shipping when they fail. For each, ask whether at least two people can support it today. If any system depends on one person, you have a single point of failure, and outsourcing or co-managing is one of the fastest ways to close it.