I don't know the details of your background other that what you have stated below... I am a business owner and also the 'Head Techie'.. as such I will add my 2 cents to the 'soul searching' you are doing...
Working in the business, and working on the business, are two very distinct concepts. As techies, we often confuse the two.. but that confusion is a self made mistake. There is a distinct role of the "Manager" vs the role of a Network Admin. From the sounds of it you have been doing both for so long that now the roles are getting a bit more defined, you are sort of questioning yourself with the self assigned value to the role of the Manager. The "Flaw" with outsourcing or using external contractors is a very simple one.... They will do exactly what you have contracted them to do .. nothing more and hopefully nothing less... i.e. It is typically not in their best interest to spend large amount of time in optimizing, cleaning up, streamlining your network... (unless that is the specific job assigned). The quintessential role of the Manger is exactly that.. a continuous overview of all the elements of the business, making sure that everything is working like a fine tuned machine, jumping in the areas which need help, and......working on Business Development... (How to optimize, how to do things better, how to grow the network, how to offer more profitable services etc etc etc...... i.e. the Tomorrow projects). Having said that...what is the value ? well it depends on how you fill those shoes... if you are going to be a 'glorified' Network Admin.. then the value is a diminishing one..... if you are going to be a Manager, who is now able to focus on Business Development.. then the value would be measured as a multiple of Network Admin. :) Best of Luck. Faisal Imtiaz Snappy Internet & Telecom 7266 SW 48 Street Miami, FL 33155 Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232 Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: supp...@snappytelecom.net > From: "Steve Jones" <thatoneguyst...@gmail.com> > To: af@afmug.com > Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2017 2:15:15 AM > Subject: [AFMUG] owner vs employee staff valuation > I'm very curious, primarily from owners with admin staff about staff > valuation. > I'm a pretty critical guy here, I think a lot of that is due to the fact I > don't spread my role freely. I'm the admin, , that's pretty straight forward. > I'm the tier 3, or two, whichever you assign to tech support that actually > solves problems or initiates disconnects that cant be resoled vi a call one. > We also do network support, I only really generate 5-20 billable hours on > that. > Not to be cocky, but a lot of those limited 5-20 is my efficiency... I'm > really > good at my job. > Last year I recommended dropping one of our techs, which freed up a ton of > dough, gave us the option to go to serverplus. the frees uo a substantial > amount of my tier 2/3 time (their tier1 is much more inclusive than ours, > We brought in a contractor on our ISP side to handle the BGP followed by IP6 > adoption. > Their continued support for the transit component of our network is not a > terrible cost > What I have found is my cost to the company is substantially higher than a > recurring contract with them. > Essentially, we offset the whole of the transit on our network and more with > the > ditching 0f the tech > That leaves me with pretty much posting to afmug for advice on new stuff. > We have "reliable" outsource site/tower guys > As an administrator, I genuinely think I found a route to replace myself with > a > substantial savings, with the exception of new product/technology exploration. > a pretty good discount. Installers are just s cost, if we need more, we get > more, like fish. > Assuming you guys have a guy for everything other than going to Afmug to get > advice, how much is the afmug guy worth. ( I use the list just for example) > I know I'm not the first guy who found what on its face to be a highly cost > effective solution to replace their "network guy" and found a flaw > whats the flaw?
