Can Your IT Company Provide Predictable Results?

Jun 26, 2017 | Managed Services, Operations

Can your IT company provide predictable results?

Companies of all types are leveraging technology these days to reduce headcount while still scaling the business. This is particularly true of professional service and knowledge work companies. These companies have used technology to eliminate administrative overhead and do more with fewer, but usually higher-skilled and more expensive employees.

That’s made getting predictable results from technology more important than ever before. Having someone that bills $200+ an hour sidelined by malfunctioning technology is painful. Having an office of 30 knowledge workers unable to work or communicate can be an expensive disaster. Unfortunately, for many companies, the understanding of how to get predictable results from technology hasn’t come as far as their need for it.

Many companies chase after the latest technology, hoping it fixes the problem, or hire companies/people they feel will be able to fix problems quickly when they happen. When the same kinds of issues happen with the new software or the new provider/IT staff, they try again. And again. By the time we meet them, they’re usually pretty frustrated if not outright cynical.

Here’s the truth.

Most companies do get predictable results from their technology – predictably bad.

Here’s another truth.

If you ask them how well their technology works for them, they’ll answer “fine.” They don’t know any better. They think the situation they’re in, where there are unexplained outages, security breaches, malware, backups that can’t be recovered is just the way it is. They think this is normal.

Why do they think it’s normal? Because they’ve never experienced it any other way. And that’s largely the fault of people in our industry – the IT industry – who themselves think that’s normal. Most small business IT people and IT providers get it dead wrong.

Why? Because:

  • They’re probably an IT project shop and are trying to make extra money by being a Managed Services Provider,
  • They have almost no experience with IT operations,
  • They’re focused on fixing what’s broken and have no concrete, ongoing plan to prevent things from breaking in the future.

Almost any MSP will tell you:

  • They’re proactive, but then can’t explain in detail what they’re going to do to be actually proactive,
  • They have monitoring and alerting and that lets them be proactive, but monitoring tells you what broke, it doesn’t stop it, so it’s actually reactive,
  • They’re quick at resolving issues, but then can’t provide any real metrics showing that, and anyway, wouldn’t you rather not have the issue in the first place?
  • They have certified engineers, the best engineers – and so does every other MSP out there,
  • They care more about your business and want to understand it, and not just your technology – do you think anyone is going to tell you that they care less and don’t want to understand your business?

The last truth.

There are a lot of “fake” MSPs out there. A “real” MSP has a proven, concrete approach to do one thing: deliver predictable, positive results for your business using technology.

Are you interested in learning how Brightworks Group does just that? Reach out to us. 

[sc_fs_faq html=”true” headline=”h2″ img=”” question=”What is a MSP?” img_alt=”” css_class=””] A “real” MSP has a proven, concrete approach to do one thing: deliver predictable, positive results for your business using technology. [/sc_fs_faq]