Imagine a situation: one of the employees suddenly feels weak, complaining of shortness of breath and chest pain. No one would think to ask a colleague from the office for help - we call a doctor or an ambulance because it concerns health, possibly the life of a person.
But what if something unexpected happens with the computer? When the network stops working or the server does not respond? Here, the colleague from the office who "knows a bit about computers" suddenly seems like the right person. The difference is obviously fundamental - in the first case, it's about the health and life of a person. But in the second case, it's about the health and sometimes life of your company. And that threat is equally real.
Przekonanie, że IT można ogarnąć samemu albo bez profesjonalisty, to jeden z najczęstszych i najkosztowniejszych błędów, jakie popełniają firmy. Na szczęście świadomość powoli rośnie - coraz więcej przedsiębiorstw sięga po profesjonalne wsparcie informatyczne, rozumiejąc że to nie koszt, lecz inwestycja w bezpieczeństwo i ciągłość działania.
IT is not a single field. It is dozens of fields.
Information technology - understood as daily IT service in a company - is not one cohesive area of knowledge. It's a collection of dozens of separate specializations: network administrator, security specialist, server administrator, cloud engineer, helpdesk, Microsoft 365 specialist. Each of these fields requires years of study and experience. A good IT security specialist may know almost nothing about configuring cloud environments. A great network administrator may struggle with diagnosing accounting software problems. It's not a matter of incompetence - it's a matter of specialization.
Even companies that specialize in IT professionally - like Helpwise - distribute competencies among many specialists. If an IT company that profits from this and continuously trains needs a team - what does it mean for someone who considers IT a side job to try to "handle IT"?
One can learn. But not everything.
Someone might say, "But I manage the accounting myself and I’m doing fine." That's true - and it's a good analogy. Simple accounting is well-defined, has clear regulations and forms. When matters become complicated, business owners turn to an accounting office. Because the risk of error is too great.
IT looks similar, but with far fewer things that can be safely done independently. Someone determined might learn to configure a router, install an operating system, and handle email. That’s the absolute basics. Beyond that begins territory requiring specialized knowledge: network segmentation, firewall configuration, certificate management, designing a backup that actually works, responding to security incidents.
And there is one more dimension - technology changes at a pace unmatched by other fields. New vulnerabilities are discovered every day. A person who "somehow manages IT" in their spare time has no chance to keep up.
You can hire your own IT specialist - but that doesn't solve everything
If a company realizes that IT is important, the natural question arises own employee or IT outsourcing ?
But having your own IT specialist is still one person with their competency gaps. They go on vacation, get sick, leave the job - sometimes suddenly, without passing on knowledge. Key information about the company's systems remains solely in their head. When they leave, the company is left with infrastructure that no one else understands.
To this, we add the cost: an employed IT specialist in Warsaw today costs 6000-10,000 PLN gross per month plus social security, vacations, and equipment. For companies where IT plays a supporting role, the outsourcing model is usually a better and cheaper solution.
What happens when IT is completely neglected
Many companies ignore IT for years. Computers start up, email works, files are saved somewhere. From the outside, it looks normal. However, under the surface, a number of problems accumulate.
Systems stop being updated, and known security holes emerge that cybercriminals actively exploit - not necessarily because someone specifically chose this company, but because automated scans detect unsecured systems and attack them en masse. Backups either do not exist, or only appear to exist - an external drive that someone copied something to once upon a time. When a failure or ransomware attack occurs, the company finds out that its data is unrecoverable. This is how companies lose data.
Without control over passwords and access, the company does not know who has access to which systems. Former employees may still have active accounts. Incidents without IT support mean long downtimes - instead of the few hours a specialist needs, the company waits days searching for help among random acquaintances. And the IT environment grows chaotically, without a coherent vision, which over time becomes so deeply rooted that sorting it out takes enormous effort.
What happens when we delegate IT to an employee without competencies
Many companies choose a middle path: they appoint someone who "knows computers better" and assign them to take care of the infrastructure. Such a person acts in good faith and manages simple problems. But their knowledge has limits, which they often are not aware of - and in IT, lack of knowledge about a threat does not mean the threat does not exist.
Network configuration performed without the proper competencies may seem to work for years - and have vulnerabilities allowing unauthorized access. A backup configured by someone who has never tested the recovery process may give the illusion of safety until it turns out that data cannot be restored.
Around such a person, shadow IT often arises - informal infrastructure operating outside of knowledge and control. When this informal IT person leaves the company, they leave an environment that no one else understands, without documentation and procedures.
IT is also law
GDPR applies to every company that processes personal data. And practically every company that has clients, employees, or partners processes such data. Small businesses, sole proprietorships, small firms - all have the same obligations and bear the same responsibility for violations.
Dane osobowe muszą być przechowywane bezpiecznie, dostęp do nich ograniczony do osób, które go potrzebują, a firma powinna być w stanie wykazać co przetwarza i jak chroni. W przypadku naruszenia bezpieczeństwa jest obowiązek zgłoszenia incydentu do UODO w ciągu 72 godzin. Kary mogą sięgać 20 milionów euro lub 4% rocznego obrotu.
Professional IT support helps meet GDPR requirements at the technical level: proper access management, data encryption, environmental monitoring, incident response procedures. A company without IT support very often cannot demonstrate compliance with these requirements - even if it is trying to act properly in good faith.
What it looks like at Helpwise
We have been serving companies from Warsaw and the surrounding areas for many years. We have seen very different approaches to IT - from companies with well-organized environments, through those with unofficial "in-house IT", to companies that for years had no support and came to us after a serious incident.
The conclusions are similar every time. Companies that take IT seriously operate more efficiently, have fewer downtimes, and are better prepared for unexpected situations. Companies that postpone the decision "until there’s more time" often come to us at a time of crisis - when something serious has already happened.