IT Staffing Comparison
In-House vs Managed vs Co-Managed IT for Dealerships
What each model covers, what it really costs and what happens the day someone leaves, whether you hire IT staff, hand it to a partner or split the work.
Dealerships weighing in-house vs outsourced IT really have three models to choose from. Hire your own IT staff, hand everything to a managed partner, or go co-managed, where your IT person stays in charge and a partner team covers the specialties one hire can’t.
Last updated: October 15, 2026
IT has split into specialties. One hire can’t be the whole bench.
Erik Nachbahr founded Helion Technologies in 1997, and he’s sat across the desk from a lot of dealer principals weighing this exact call. His test for a store that runs on one IT person is blunt: “Is he gonna walk out the door, and then where does that leave you?” That isn’t a knock on the person. It’s math.
Search for in-house vs managed IT and you’ll mostly find managed service providers arguing for themselves. We’re one of them, so this page compares all three models on the same questions, including the one where your IT manager stays on payroll and keeps running things. We’ll be straight about it. For a lot of stores that’s the right answer, and our co-managed IT page covers how it works day to day. If you’d rather hand over all of it, start with managed IT support.
Full disclosure. Helion sells fully managed and co-managed IT, and some of our longest relationships run through an internal IT director. We’re not here to talk anyone out of their IT person.
Why One IT Hire Costs More Than the Salary Line
Start with what the market pays. A network administrator and a security analyst are two different jobs now, with two different salaries, and a store that wants both skills on payroll is buying both before it pays for benefits, training, tools or a single certification renewal. It adds up fast.
Security is where it gets tight. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects information security analyst jobs to grow 21% from 2025 to 2035, so the person who can actually read an alert at 2 a.m. is the person every bank and hospital in your town is trying to hire too. That’s a hard hire.
Big groups feel it as well. Even a dealer group with a chief information officer buys outside depth, which tells you this isn’t a small-store problem. That’s dealership IT now.
Good IT people are worth it. They’re also scarce.
May 2025
The Bureau of Labor Statistics put median pay for network and computer systems administrators at $99,130, and for information security analysts at $129,180.
Two specialties. Two salaries.
February 2026
One of the largest heavy truck dealer groups in the country, with 126 franchised truck centers in 23 states and a CIO leading its security program, says in its 2025 annual report to the SEC that it uses “a combination of internal resources and external managed security service providers.”
Even the biggest groups split the work.
Side by side
In-House vs Outsourced IT for Dealerships, Compared Line by Line
Three models, the same seven questions. No column wins every row. The size of your stores and the person you already employ usually decide it.
| Question | In-house IT | Fully managed | Co-managed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who’s in charge | Your IT manager, who reports to you. | The partner, with one point of contact for your leadership. | Your IT person keeps the lead and sets priorities. The partner works the plan with them. |
| Daily help desk | Your staff, during their hours. | The partner’s help desk. Helion’s is live 6 a.m. to midnight Eastern, Monday to Saturday. | Split by agreement. One side owns strategy, the other owns the day-to-day work. |
| Security monitoring | What one person can watch, with tools they run themselves. | Depends on the partner. Ask who sees an alert at 2 a.m. | The partner watches around the clock, and your IT person sees what it sees. |
| FTC Safeguards file | Your team writes it, tests it and reports to the board each year. | The partner can run it. You still keep responsibility for it. | Your IT person can stay the Qualified Individual, with the partner doing the testing and paperwork. |
| When someone leaves | The knowledge leaves too, and you hire under pressure. | Coverage doesn’t change. Staffing is the partner’s job. | The partner already knows your network, so nothing goes dark while you hire. |
| How the cost works | Salary, benefits, training and tools, per person. | One monthly fee for a whole team. | Your IT payroll plus a partner fee scoped to the gaps. |
| Usually fits | Groups big enough to staff a real department and lead it. | Stores with no IT staff, or ready to stop running IT themselves. | Stores with an IT person or team worth keeping who need depth behind them. |
Sources: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook (May 2025 pay) and the FTC Safeguards Rule, 16 CFR 314.4.
Before you decide
Six Questions to Answer Before You Hire, Outsource or Split It
The salary is the easy number. These six decide whether a model holds up on a bad Saturday, so answer them in writing, with your controller in the room.
Want the numbers worked out for your stores? Request a price quote.
Where Helion fits
Fully managed or co-managed, it’s the same team and the same standard. Only the lines move.
Dealership IT staffing review Same six questions, any model
1 What happens the day your IT person leaves?
It happens. People take the job down the street, burn out or retire, and every so often one really does win the lottery, which is the point of our older post on what happens when your IT guy wins the lottery. With a team behind the store, as Erik puts it, “you’re not one heartbeat from the ground.”
List what only one person knows today.
2 Who’s watching at 2 a.m. on a Saturday?
Attackers don’t keep store hours. One person can’t watch a network around the clock and still sleep, so ask every model you’re weighing who sees the alert, who’s allowed to act on it and how fast they do. If the honest answer is that it emails somebody, that’s your answer.
Get the after-hours escalation path in writing.
3 Who owns the Safeguards file?
A store that arranges financing needs a Qualified Individual, a written risk assessment, a penetration test every year, vulnerability scans every six months and a yearly report to the board under the FTC Safeguards Rule. It’s its own specialty. An in-house manager can own it, if somebody gives them the hours.
Find the date of your last penetration test.
4 Who does the strategy, and who does the daily work?
They’re two different jobs that usually land on one desk. Erik describes the hybrid as “somebody working on your strategy … and the day to day blocking and tackling is handled by somebody else.” Both halves matter. Either side can take either half, including projects like a DMS transition.
Ask your IT person which half they want.
5 What does it really cost, all in?
Add the salary, benefits, training, certification renewals and the cost of covering a two-week vacation, then put every IT, phone and security invoice you pay now next to it. Be honest about it. One dealer group that shrank from eight stores to three lost its whole internal IT team overnight, CIO included. Its cost comparison showed outsourcing was more cost-competitive than hiring two full-time replacements. More stories like it are in our case studies.
Put every invoice on one table.
6 Does your IT person want help?
Co-managed only works when the internal person wants it. Not every IT manager does. Two of our longest-running co-managed relationships, groups of more than 1,000 seats each, were built that way from the start. Their IT director runs the relationship, a smaller internal crew handles the field work and Helion carries accountability and risk behind them.
Ask them first. Before anyone else.
How Much IT Work Stays on Your Payroll in Each Model
The dots show how much of the IT work your own staff carry.
Go fully managed
One team owns all of it, with one contact for leadership and no IT hire to replace.
Go co-managed
Your IT person stays in charge, and a partner team covers security, compliance and the depth behind them.
Keep it all in-house
Full control and people who know every rooftop. It holds up best as a department, not one person.
None of them is wrong. A single-point store where the controller doubles as the IT person weighs this very differently than a 20-rooftop group with an IT director and a help desk of its own, which is why our IT services for dealer groups start from the team you already have. For leadership, Erik frames the first conversation as a second opinion, not a pitch: “Do you want a second look at how your money’s getting spent?”
What Helion Brings, Whichever Model You Pick
Co-managed and fully managed clients get the same team behind the same standard, so a store that starts co-managed and later moves to full service, or goes the other way, doesn’t start over. Nothing gets rebuilt. We’ve watched this staffing question play out at a lot of stores. It rarely ends well with one person doing five jobs.
How Helion Helps You Choose the Right IT Model
-
1
Complimentary assessment
We walk the network at each rooftop, talk with your IT person if you have one and lay every IT, phone and security invoice side by side, because leadership deserves a clear look at where the money goes before anybody signs anything.
-
2
Draw the lines
Who owns strategy, the help desk, security, the Safeguards file and projects, written down and agreed first, the way our co-managed IT responsibility matrix lays it out. No guessing later.
-
3
Onboarding
Onboarding starts within weeks of signing, with what your IT person knows about each store built into the plan.
-
4
Adjust as you grow
Regular reviews keep the lines current, and the model can move between co-managed and full service as your staffing changes.
Common Questions
Still weighing it?
Bring your IT person and your invoices to a complimentary IT and cybersecurity assessment. We’ll show you where the lines could go.
Is it cheaper to outsource IT or hire in-house?
What is co-managed IT?
Will co-managed IT replace our IT manager?
Do large dealer groups use outside IT too?
What happens to our IT if our only IT person quits?
Can we switch from co-managed to fully managed later?
Who is the Qualified Individual if we outsource IT?
Hire, outsource or split it, the right answer starts with what you’re spending now and who’s carrying the load. Let’s look at both.
Get Your Complimentary IT & Cybersecurity Assessment →