Technology & Knowledge In IT We know IT is an expensive part of doing business which is why we are dedicated to finding solutions that both bring down the capital cost and ensure your business does not have to contend with large unexpected costs when something goes wrong. One of the big problems with Information Technology in business is the way it is often oversimplified. The difference between an IT consultant that really knows what they are doing and someone who struggles with problems they have not seen before yet gives a veneer of confidence is about 10 years. Unfortunately business owners will often look at someone who knows more than they do about computers and consider them an expert. No shades of gray, no bands of knowledge, just black and white, yes or no. This often means that business owners will be confused, they may get a new secretary or personal assistant who has a prior relationship with another IT provider. For reasons that are not in the best interests of the business, the old IT provider is pushed out the door without too much analysis or thought to the cost. Suddenly the new IT company is persuading you to purchase a whole new server, new computers, new software. Before you know it, the cost has jumped to double or quadruple the amount you had paid the year before for IT support. Its like a lion committing infanticide, getting rid of all remnants of the previous occupier. This attitude does not take your businesses IT needs seriously and you should be concerned if you are getting this advice especially if only a short time frame has occurred since they have taken over.
How do you get around this? Ultimately it is very important to build a solid relationship with your IT service providers. If they have been looking after your interests for 3, 4 or 5 years, don't jump ship on a whim or because a new employee thinks they know better. Its your business and your money. Really try and analyse what you are paying for. Also just because your IT support company gives you advice you do not like, try not to hold it against them. If they recommend locking down the desktops and not giving server passwords out to staff, then in most cases its in your best interest to listen to this advice. Yes your IT support company will be trying to make money, they will also in most cases be trying to save you money. Many of the decisions a responsible IT company will recommend will be highly unpopular with staff, and yet the external IT companies success often hangs on whether staff are happy with their performance. This makes our job extremely difficult and is often like walking a tight rope. We have often toyed with the idea of just doing what staff want so our tenure remains secure. This is great for an IT company that bills by the hour as there will always be plenty of problems to attend to. On a fixed price management contract however, it all falls over. If staff are left to fiddle and set things up as they please then costs blow out, with a fixed contract this can be fatal for the IT company (as we nearly found out)
Bagging Previous IT Companies! Run a mile from any IT business that bags the previous incumbent, its a cheap, easy shot and again lacks integrity. Creydall systems has often sat in front of clients who have unleashed a torrent of complaints about the soon to be fired current IT provider. In nearly every case that we have come across, it has always boiled down to poor communication and a mismatch of personalities rather than poor technical ability. Often technicians will criticize something as being not done correctly if they don't understand it, or if it has not been done "the way its supposed to be done" This is hard to fathom because in nearly all cases, there are always several different ways to complete a task, all of them correct and all are offer the same result. Often the criticism comes from the technicians own lack of knowledge and many times the job that's being criticized is beyond their capability. This happens in of course all professions. We believe leading by example is the best policy. The business relationship between two companies is often the same as an employer / employee relationship in that they are often hired on their skills and experience then fired on personality or communications issues. An IT company that comes in and throws petrol on the flames of anger is just taking advantage of the circumstances. They know that you cannot verify their claims that the previous IT company was delinquent in their duties and they also know the previous IT company will not easily be able to defend themselves, in most cases they will not even be aware it is going on. If the new IT company is any good, they will be focusing on getting to know your system rather than the negatives of the past.
Cautionary Tale On Unlimited Support Our company has in the past lost business, and none of it has been to do with the technology and knowledge of our staff, primarily it was our inability to communicate effectively the value the client was getting from our relationship. We hand not reinforced the relationship with the CEO over the years so that when a key staff member resigned and a new staff member started that we had difficulty with, we had no anchor point, we were just another face in the office. We have learnt a great deal from this experience and now ensure we foster a strong relationship with either the CEO or the owner of the company. We now only target companies that understand the importance of technology in today's business, and take an active role in the strategic direction of IT in their business. Top level executives or business owners that leave strategic IT decisions to the IT department (internal or outsourced) will eventually come unstuck. Its not smart and some say its a lazy management practice. Often an unhappy client is like a train wreck, it happens in slow motion in the mind, we can see it coming, the odd comment here and there. Sometimes the harder you try to keep a client, the worse you can make it. A gut feeling told us things were not going well with this particular client so we spent a whole weekend printing up charts and graphs that showed we were so far within our service level agreement that graphing it was made difficult. Our SLA response time was 24 hours for non urgent calls yet we were responding on average within 20 min's (try graphing that!) We also graphed the level of low priority support calls that had occurred that showed the massive increase since unlimited support had kicked in. The response after giving them extremely valuable insights as to how their business IT was functioning was "The CEO is not all that impressed with graphs and statistics" If you can't measure it, how can it be managed was the question I had that remained unanswered. At this point we were beginning to realise that we had reached a point of no return. Ultimately it was our fault for not seeing the signs earlier and communicating more effectively, The world of business often gives the tests first and the lessons later.... Below are the actual graphs completed for that client - names have been removed to protect all concerned.
The other issue that emerged with this client had been we just said yes to everything in order to try and please, ignoring our written contract. At one point doing 80 hours per month for a fixed $1500 contract. You may be thinking, well at least you have a happy client, well no actually it went the other way, the more we serviced, the more dissatisfied they became, the less they valued our time. Most of the management meetings we setup to discuss issues, nobody would turn up, or the secretary would frantically ring around trying to locate the participants, costing us an hour here, two hours there. The staff would tie up our help desk with many calls for irrelevant requests, ringing because their PC was not working only to find out they had forgotten to turn it on, failing to locate a word shortcut on the desktop etc etc. We should of billed these calls from the beginning, we tried to be liked by everyone and ended up being liked by nobody. They did not see that low priority requests had sky rocketed since introducing unlimited support to their organisation, all they saw was they were ringing up because things were not working like they "used to" and when running a service oriented business, the clients perception is everything. As the technology became more reliable, the client became more reliant on it, email flow jumped from 3500 at the start of the agreement to over 9000 towards the end over only a 1 year period. Yet our monthly fees stayed the same. More people relying on the technology meant more support calls, which only reinforced the clients perception that support was getting worse rather than better. When things finally got too much and we started invoicing for out of scope work, it was a shock too them, shortly after we were replaced. It was an expensive lesson for us, however a valuable one. We have learnt a contract is there to protect both parties from unfair practices. It should be adhered to rigidly. We thought we were doing the client a favour by doing everything essentially for free, all we did was devalue our services and our time in the client eyes to the point where our time was not worth anything to them. They were not satisfied and neither were we.
Summary Make sure that the IT company you deal with has plenty of IT knowledge plus technology insight along with some business sense. Ensure technology is not purchased for the sake of technology, and that it is used in the most efficient knowledgeable way possible. Give the relationship you have with your IT department / outsourcing IT company the attention it deserves. Ask the difficult questions, ensure the work is being undertaken thoroughly. A good IT company will thrive under these conditions because they will be able to differentiate themselves from the laggards out there. If you do not take leadership in this area then it will boil down to a personality contest, you will go with the company that tells you what you want to hear and are likely to make serious decisions based on unqualified employee recommendations. You will be confused, frustrated and end up not paying technology the attention it requires to ensure you use it to your competitive advantage.
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