When co-managed IT makes more sense than fully outsourcing for a Vaughan builder, manufacturer or distributor, how the work splits, and what to ask before you sign.
TL;DR Keep your IT person and add a team behind them when they know your ERP, plant or job sites well but have no backup for nights, vacations, security work or projects. Hand everything over when nobody on staff really owns IT, or when the person who did is leaving. Either way, settle who does what in writing before the first alert at 2 a.m., not after it.
Most Vaughan businesses that ask us about co-managed IT already have someone. It’s usually someone like a coordinator in Concord who built the warehouse network, a controller in Woodbridge who became the IT person because they were good with the ERP, or a real IT hire at a plant off Highway 7 who is very good at the daily work and rarely takes a full week off.
The question they bring is rarely “should we outsource IT?” It’s closer to “do we keep this person and add help, or hand the whole thing over?” I’m Jeffrey Bowles, Partner and Director of IT Services at ACT360, and I have this conversation with business owners most weeks. This is how I’d think it through.
What Is Co-Managed IT, in Plain Terms?
Co-managed IT is an arrangement where an outside team works alongside your internal IT person instead of replacing them. Your person keeps the work they know best, and the outside team covers the gaps: after-hours coverage, security hardening, specialized projects and planning.
Fully outsourced, or fully managed, IT is the other path. The provider owns the whole relationship: help desk, monitoring, security, vendors and the technology plan. Neither is better in the abstract. They fit different situations, and the situation usually comes down to one question. Is there someone on your payroll who should stay at the centre of your IT?
If you want to see how the split works week to week once it’s running, our post on what co-managed IT looks like day to day covers the mechanics.
Why Does This Question Come Up So Often in Vaughan?
Most Vaughan businesses are small, and its largest employers are construction and manufacturing, where IT is spread across offices, plants, yards and job sites. One internal person can keep that running day to day, but rarely all of it, all the time.
Vaughan Economic Development reports more than 19,500 businesses in the city, with 87% of them under 20 employees (Statistics Canada business counts, 2022). Construction and manufacturing are the two largest employers, at 17.0% and 14.7% of jobs, followed by finance, insurance and real estate at 13.9%.
That mix produces a particular kind of IT person. They know which shop-floor PC can’t be rebooted mid-run, which estimator still uses the old version of the takeoff software, and who to call at the ERP vendor. That knowledge is hard to replace, and it’s the reason co-managed IT is on the table at all.
Security is where the gap usually shows. Statistics Canada found that 50% of Canadian businesses had cyber security employees in 2023, down from 61% in 2021. The most common reason for not having them was using consultants or contractors to monitor security instead (47%). In other words, a lot of businesses have already decided that one person can’t carry security on their own.
When Does Co-Managed IT Make More Sense Than Fully Outsourcing?
Co-managed IT makes more sense when your internal person is capable and knows your systems, but the business has outgrown what one person can cover. The signals are usually coverage, security and project work, not day-to-day support.
- Your person knows things nobody else does. The ERP’s quirks, the plant equipment, the vendor contacts. Replacing that knowledge costs more than backing it up.
- Nights and weekends are uncovered. A second shift, a Saturday pour or a weekend shipment runs while your IT person is, reasonably, asleep.
- Vacation is a risk event. When they’re away for a week, everyone quietly hopes nothing breaks.
- Security work keeps getting pushed. MFA on every account, patching on the edge devices, a reply to the insurer’s questionnaire. All of it sits behind the tickets that are due today.
- A project is stalled. Moving the file server or ERP, networking a new yard or warehouse, or standardizing laptops across sites. These need focused time a busy generalist doesn’t have.
- Leadership wants a second opinion. Not someone new to manage, but someone to check the plan against what similar businesses are doing.
If several of those sound familiar, you’re probably in co-managed territory. Our earlier post on the good and the bad of co-managed IT covers where the model tends to break down, which is worth reading before you commit.
When Is Fully Outsourced Managed IT the Better Call?
Fully outsourced managed IT is the better call when nobody on staff really owns IT, when the person who did is leaving, or when IT is a side job that’s pulling someone away from the work they were hired for.
Co-managed IT depends on a capable person in the middle. Without one, you’re paying for coordination with nobody to coordinate with. These situations usually point the other way.
- The “IT person” is really the office manager, the controller or the owner. They’d be relieved to hand it off, and their time is worth more elsewhere.
- Your IT person has given notice. Use the remaining weeks to document what they know, then move to a provider that owns the whole environment.
- Nothing is written down. No list of admin accounts, licences or vendor contracts. That needs a full assessment and cleanup, which is easier when one party owns it.
- You want one number and one accountable party. A single monthly fee and one place to call is simpler to budget and manage.
For context on cost, ACT360’s full-service managed IT in Vaughan runs $80 to $150 per user per month, or $75 to $120 remote-only, with Microsoft licences billed separately. Our guide to what managed IT costs in Vaughan works those numbers out by team size and type of operation.
How Do Co-Managed and Fully Managed IT Compare for a Vaughan Operation?
The main differences are who handles day-to-day support, how the price is built, and how much of the business depends on one person. Here’s how the two models, and staying in-house only, compare.
| Co-managed IT | Fully managed IT | In-house only | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day-to-day support | Your IT person | The provider, through a named contact | Your IT person |
| Nights, weekends and vacations | Covered by the outside team, as agreed in writing | Covered by the provider | Usually uncovered |
| Security and projects | Handed to the outside team | Included in the provider’s scope | Whatever one person has time for |
| How it’s priced | Scoped to the gap being filled, confirmed at the assessment | Per user per month ($80 to $150 full service at ACT360) | About $100,000 a year in salary per hire, before benefits |
| Single point of failure | Reduced, because your person has backup | Low, because a team stands behind the contact | High |
| Best fit in Vaughan | A plant, distributor or builder with a capable IT hire who’s stretched | A business where IT is someone’s side job, or nobody’s | Rarely the safest option once sites or shifts multiply |
The salary figure comes from Job Bank, which lists a median wage of $48.08 an hour for IT specialists in the Toronto region, which includes Vaughan (2023 to 2024 data). At 2,080 hours that’s about $100,000 a year. Co-managed IT doesn’t replace that cost. It protects what you’re already paying for.
How Should the Work Split Between Your IT Person and an Outside Team?
Your IT person usually keeps daily user support and the systems they know best. The outside team takes after-hours coverage, security hardening, specialized projects and planning support. The exact split gets written down during the assessment, not improvised later.
Here’s a typical starting point for a Vaughan manufacturer or distributor. Yours will differ, and it should.
| Usually stays with your IT person | Usually goes to the outside team |
|---|---|
| Daily requests from staff in the office, plant and yard | After-hours and vacation coverage |
| The ERP, estimating or dispatch system and its vendor | Security hardening, such as MFA everywhere and locking down remote access |
| Shop-floor machines and their maintenance windows | Projects like a cloud migration or a new site network |
| New-hire setup and knowing who needs access to what | Vendor negotiations and budgeting input |
The first weeks go to documenting what your person already owns: admin accounts, licences, vendors and the reasons things were set up the way they were. In our experience the handoff settles over roughly the first 60 to 90 days, staged around your person’s schedule rather than flipped over in one weekend.
Security hardening is the piece most worth handing off. Microsoft reports that MFA plus blocking legacy sign-ins stops more than 99.9% of common identity attacks, and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security’s baseline controls for small and medium organizations lay out the rest. Neither is hard. Both need time a busy generalist rarely gets. Our page on cybersecurity in Vaughan shows what that work covers.
What Should You Ask Before Signing a Co-Managed Agreement?
Ask who owns which systems, who gets the alert at night, whose tools you’ll use, and what happens if your IT person leaves. If a provider can’t answer those plainly, the arrangement will turn into finger-pointing.
- Who owns the admin accounts? The company should hold Microsoft 365, domain and firewall admin access, not your IT person personally and not the provider.
- Who gets the alert at 2 a.m.? Write down the escalation path for nights, weekends and a second shift.
- Whose tools are we using? Two monitoring tools and two ticket queues create blind spots. Agree on one of each.
- What does your IT person stop doing? If the answer is nothing, they won’t get the time back.
- What happens if our person leaves? Ask how the provider would cover the gap and whether moving to full managed IT is a scope change or a new contract.
- How is the split reviewed? Quarterly is reasonable. Your business will change, and the split should follow it.
The third question matters more than it looks. When your person and the outside team each work from their own tools, nobody has the full picture, which is the exact problem co-managed IT is supposed to solve.
Can Co-Managed IT Grow Into Fully Managed IT Later?
Yes. Some businesses start co-managed because they aren’t ready to hand over the whole relationship, then move to full managed IT when their needs outgrow the split, or when their IT person moves on.
That path is smoother when the documentation from the first 90 days already exists. The provider already knows your plants, sites and vendors, so moving up is a conversation about scope rather than a new onboarding. If you do move to full Managed IT with ACT360, that agreement includes a 90-day exit clause.
Some Vaughan businesses also find that what they really need is planning, not more hands. If the gap is budgeting and a multi-year roadmap rather than tickets, our vCIO services in Vaughan may be the better fit.
Where ACT360 Fits
We start every engagement by understanding what your IT person already owns well, so we fill the actual gaps instead of duplicating their work. In practice, that means the following.
- A named contact, Adam Bowles or me, who coordinates directly with your internal person rather than through a generic queue.
- A written split of who handles what, including nights, weekends and vacations.
- Specialized work your person doesn’t have time for, such as security hardening, migrations and vendor negotiations.
- A defined path to full managed IT if your needs change.
Our page on IT services in Vaughan shows everything we cover locally, and if you’re a few minutes east, the approach on co-managed IT in Markham works the same way.
Final Thought
The decision isn’t really co-managed versus fully managed. It’s whether the person at the centre of your IT today should stay there. If they should, give them backup. If nobody is really in that seat, it’s time to fill it properly.
If you’re not sure which side you’re on, book a free IT Readiness Assessment. We’ll look at what your IT person already handles well, where the gaps are, and which model fits. You can also call 705-739-2281 or email [email protected].
