Long before I became a business geek I was a computer geek. I was obsessed with learning how to design and build high quality IT solutions, focusing on the software side in particular. In that time I learned a lot about the "right way" to build and deploy IT solutions and witnessed far too much of the "wrong way" to build IT solutions.
It was therefore no surprise that on the second day of a new consultancy project my brother called me asking for help. His customer, was being merged with another business and as a result their original software development staff were no longer around and there was no documentation for either the in-house IT system or the software they had developed and what has been developed has been more "wrong" than "right". He wondered if I’d come in for a few days to help them figure out the IT and get the software development process back up and working so that it could be handed over to the IT staff of the acquiring company. In short they needed an interim IT manager.
Part of the problem they had was that being a smallish company whilst they had some in-house developers they didn’t have an in-house IT Manager/Director/CTO (or whatever you choose to call them). Whilst working with them it occurred to me that there must be quite a few other SMEs that are in a similar situation - they could benefit from a senior/board level IT manager but can’t afford to pay/justify paying for one on a full time basis.
So I wondered if there was a business opportunity here - could someone with the right experience offer themselves to SMEs as an IT manager/Technical Director for anything from one day a month, up to a couple of days per week. They could reasonably charge £300 - £600 per day (largely depending on location and industry) such that having them available one or two days per week would be considerably cheaper than taking on a similarly qualified full time employee yet would still provide the business with the benefit of their expertise. If you as such a manager could find three to five of such SMEs you could be fully booked and making between £6,000 and £12,000 per month.
So if you’ve got the right qualifications acting as a part time/interim IT manager for SMEs could be a great business opportunity for you to explore. If you can find more customers, then you can hire a full time manager and charge them out too, turning this business opportunity into a partnership or fully fledged business rather than a one man band.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
I’ve been using this approach and it works. Many SME’s need involved professionals but cannot afford a full-time job.
Moreover, selling this kind of service is quite easy.
Lennot,
Thanks for confirming that it’s a viable business opportunity.
Hi There,
A very interesting topic, and one that has the variables we ourselves have employed in various businesses. The topic of subcontracting the development work, or hiring an in-house developer.
We have personally found, that hiring full time developers was the way to go, financially, as well as having complete control and cumminication over the situation, or the projects at hand.
Although, depending on the work, or on-going direction of your business, it could very well be a better decision to simply use freelancers for such projects.
The only problem we found with such a strategy was the time issue allocation from such freelancers, with sometimes work not being created or booked into their schedule for weeks, when the pending completion was very important.
Fascinating, and relevant to a lot of small businesses.
Steven
Steven,
If you want mission critical work done then I would avoid freelancers and either do it in house or hire a company that specialises in software development and can commit to meeting your schedule.
Either way you’ll need an in house IT manager be that part time or full time.