How Will the IT Providers' Business Focus Affect My Results?

A lot of local companies offer managed IT services today. The sheer volume of options can make it feel overwhelming on where to start.

When evaluating managed IT providers, an excellent place to start is what percent of their business is focused on providing fully managed IT services. It sounds simple enough, but let me expand to clarify further what it is not. 

Today there are several companies whose primary revenue stream is something other than managed IT services or something other than IT services altogether. There are office equipment dealers who viewed managed IT services as another monthly service they could train their sales teams to sell as print diminished. Some business application resellers viewed managed IT services as a way to make up for the revenue lost as the software applications they sold went to the cloud. There are accounting firms who are astute at providing financial guidance to their clients, and since IT often reports to the head of finance, why not create another revenue stream of managed IT services?

Okay, so we are looking for a pure IT provider. Not so fast – the other thing to consider is that there are a lot of IT providers whose primary revenue stream is something other than managed IT services. They may be an IT product resale business selling new or used technology. Their primary business could be in implementing large one-time IT projects. Perhaps they are a break-fix company that gets to bill more hours the more issues you have. They could even be a staff augmentation company focusing on placing IT people at your company.

So, what if these companies' primary business focus is in other areas and they have a handful of customers to whom they provide managed IT services? That is better than us doing IT on our own, right?

Well, here is the thing: companies choose a managed IT services provider when they are looking to outsource the IT function of their business to an organization that has greater expertise than they could otherwise develop with the fraction of time they have internally. If only a fraction of the outsourced companies' revenue comes from managed IT services, aren't they in the same boat? Your company misses out on the value of outsourcing to an expertly managed IT services provider.

So, why can all these companies offer managed IT services? Because providing managed IT services is as easy as buying a widget on Amazon; anyone with a couple of bucks can do it. The company pays a monthly fee to a white-label helpdesk or hires some techs, buys some tools to patch computers and servers and informs their salespeople they now get a commission for selling IT contracts and products. Not exactly the expertise you were hoping for.

Fast forward, and you have narrowed the field down to only those companies whose business is 100% focused on providing managed IT services. What is important to know is there are a lot of managed IT providers who offer multiple monthly plans. Be sure to understand the percentage of their clients on the plan you are considering. Each plan was designed to create its own results in your business. It compromises its own deliverables, and the managed IT service provider has invested considerable time, money and business focus into delivering the one plan that drives most of their revenue.

When your IT group is not laser-focused on delivering the right end results, your business suffers:

• Issues are solved after they are reported and affect your people, costing you time and money
• Risk is unknown, leaving you surprised by unexpected problems
• No guidance leaves it up to you to figure out the most important and expensive parts
• Not being cybersecure leaves your network and information vulnerable to attack

By working with a firm whose primary focus is providing a proactive IT service, they will align you with best practices and guide your entire technology spend, eliminating issues before they start and enabling your business to do more with less.