Outsourcing TOPdesk administration: when it pays off

“We are outsourcing our TOPdesk administration” sounds like a decision about cost. In practice it is almost always a decision about continuity. The conversation rarely starts with a spreadsheet and usually starts with a departing colleague, a backlog nobody dares open, or an audit question nobody can answer.

The cost question is fair, though, and it is more answerable than most organisations think. Below: the arithmetic, the size at which outsourcing starts to pay off, the cases where it should not happen, and the four questions worth asking any administration partner.

What an in-house administrator actually costs

Take a functional administrator with TOPdesk experience. In the Netherlands the gross salary sits somewhere between €3,600 and €4,400 a month. On top of that come holiday pay, a year-end allowance, pension contributions, social charges and disability insurance. Reckon on a factor of 1.3 to 1.4 on the gross annual salary.

For half an FTE that lands at roughly €45,000 to €55,000 a year. And that is only the payroll. What is not in there:

• Recruitment. A functional administrator with TOPdesk experience is scarce. Allow three to six months of searching, and an agency fee of 20 to 25 per cent if you go through an intermediary.
• Ramp-up. Six to nine months before someone administers the environment independently, especially when there is no documentation from whoever held the role before.
• Training. TOPdesk courses, ITIL certification, keeping up with releases: easily €2,000 to €4,000 a year.
• Absence. Holidays, sickness, leave. With one person there is no backup, so the work either stops or lands with someone who cannot absorb it.

All in, half an FTE costs closer to €60,000 than €45,000 in the first year. From year two that drops — until the day that person leaves and you start again.

The comparison that actually matters

Set a management contract beside that. There you buy only the hours you need: 8 hours a week costs €2,700 a month — €34,140 a year — and everything that happens in those hours is included: the backlog, the configuration, changes, release checks, reporting and the dashboard. No recruitment, no onboarding time, and no cover to arrange when someone is ill or leaves. If you structurally need more, Managed runs up to 24 hours a week; if you want us to be the first line as well, with an SLA on it, Fully Managed starts at 32 hours a week.

But the honest comparison is not only about euros. An in-house administrator has things an external one does not: they are in the corridors, they hear things that never reach a ticket, and they know the organisation's politics. An external party has things an in-house administrator does not: they see dozens of environments, they know what works elsewhere, and their knowledge does not disappear when they change roles.

So the question is not which is cheaper, but which risk you would rather carry: the risk of paying too much, or the risk of your environment stalling the moment one person leaves.

Where the line sits

A rule of thumb that holds up reasonably well in practice:

• Under 250 employees, a dedicated functional administrator rarely adds up. There is not enough work for a whole role, so it becomes a task on the side — and tasks on the side always lose to tasks with a deadline. Outsourcing is almost always cheaper here.
• Between 250 and 1,500 employees is the interesting zone. There is enough work for one person but not for two — and one administrator means no backup. This is where shared administration works best: an in-house administrator who knows the organisation, with an external party alongside for depth, peaks and cover.
• Above 1,500 employees, an in-house team usually justifies itself. External involvement then shifts from administration to advice, projects and specialist work such as integrations and migrations.

When not to do it

There are situations where outsourcing is a bad idea, and it is better to spot them beforehand than halfway through.

When nobody is left to decide

An external administration partner can deliver, advise and monitor. What it cannot do is decide what the organisation wants. If nobody sets priorities and settles questions, outsourcing becomes a ticket conveyor belt: a great deal happens and nothing changes. One point of contact with a mandate is the minimum.

When the environment is fundamentally broken

Administration is maintenance. If the configuration has drifted so far that every change breaks three other things, you need a clean-up project first and a management contract second. A good partner says so, and does that clean-up as a separate engagement with its own beginning and end.

When it is purely about money

Anyone who outsources to cut costs and changes nothing else pays the same money for the same problem, only with an invoice in between. The gain is in continuity, in specialist knowledge and in work no longer sitting still — not in the rate.

Four questions for an administration partner

What you ask says more about the outcome than what the quotation says.

1. Where do you document what you configure?

The good answer is: in your own environment. Documentation held in a supplier's system is a form of lock-in, even when nobody intends it that way. What sits in your TOPdesk stays yours.

2. What happens if we cancel?

Ask about the handover and ask whether it is free. A party that is cagey about this earns money from the fact that you cannot leave. A party that takes it for granted earns it from the work.

3. Who does the work when you are not there?

With a small firm this is the most important question. An honest answer names the backup arrangement and shows that the knowledge transfer is already handled before it is needed — through documentation in the environment itself, and through recordings of reviews. An answer along the lines of “that will be fine” is not an answer.

4. What can we hold you to?

Response and resolution times are the minimum. More interesting is whether the party also commits to how users experience it. An SLA measures whether someone was on time; an XLA measures whether the reporter could get on with their work. Hitting only the first is entirely possible while nobody is satisfied.

In short

Outsourcing pays off when your organisation is too small for a full administration role, or too large to depend on one person without backup. It does not pay off when nobody is left to decide, or when the environment needs cleaning up first.

And when comparing, do not look only at the monthly figure. Ask about documentation, handover, backup and commitments. Those are the four things you will be glad about, or regret, three years from now.