IT is an integral and deeply integrated part of most small / medium enterprises. Whether your technology infrastructure is outsourced completely, outsourced partially, or entirely internal; you need to keep visibility into the current trends and issues within your technology environment.
For most organizations, technology is the largest operating and capital expense area of the organization. Yet too many organizations fail to keep a regular and consistent dialogue with their IT providers. Companies that are best in class do.
Some time ago I was talking with a co-owner in the SME space, this person had gone through two outsourced IT services organizations and were on their third. The first two just “were not acceptable”, … “poor service” etc.
But like most small businesses, if someone had a problem, they called the provider, who then responded and was to take care of the problem, and then sent an invoice. However the “perception” was always negative. And without concrete information, neither they or their providers really have any evidence on way or the other.
Their issue was not necessarily the providers, but trust. Trust is knowing – not faith. As I wrote in this post on IT Doesn’t Matter “the risk of pushing IT down the organization where no one pays attention to it is dangerous. Because the management and stewardship of this must be a senior level priority and top of mind.”
There must be regular communications on technology strategy and delivery. If you are an Owner or General Manager in a smaller organization, it may be a weekly meeting, if you are the chief executive of a larger organization it may be a monthly summary. (but someone on your leadership team has to be having that weekly meeting)
This does not require that you as a business manager have to learn “Tech Speak”. It means an ongoing dialogue of what the current challenges are, the status of previous issues, and planning for future events.
This ongoing dialogue will be the vehicle that will establish trust in your IT provider, or it may definitely show that the provider is not worth your trust. But then that decision can be based on facts rather than perception.
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