You’ve invested significant time and money into an IT vendor, expecting professional service and clear accountability. Yet, when an IT issue arises – a system goes down, a security alert fires or a critical application fails – suddenly, no one owns the problem.
Your IT vendor blames the software provider, the software provider blames the cloud host, the cloud host blames the network vendor and the network vendor blames the end user. Meanwhile, your business is losing productivity, revenue and customer trust.
If your IT vendor keeps passing the buck to others, it’s not only frustrating – it’s a sign of a deeper strategic issue. Let’s talk about what’s really happening and what leaders should do next to stop the finger-pointing.
Read: 5 Tips on How to Hold Your IT Provider Accountable
The Real Cost of “Not Our Problem”
When IT accountability breaks down, the impact goes far beyond inconvenience:
- Downtime lasts longer because no one is coordinating resolution
- Security risks increase as gaps between vendors go unmanaged
- Internal teams lose confidence in IT’s ability to support the business
- Executives are pulled into firefighting instead of strategic leadership
Most importantly, finger-pointing erodes trust, and trust is foundational to effective IT strategy.
Why Do IT Vendors Pass the Buck?
This behavior is rarely accidental. It’s usually the result of one or more structural problems:
- Your IT vendor is transactional, not strategic: Many IT providers are scoped to support specific systems, not to own outcomes. If it’s outside their narrow responsibility, they disengage.
- There’s no single point of accountability: When different vendors handle infrastructure, security, cloud and applications, coordination becomes optional instead of mandatory.
- No one considers the whole environment: Without architectural oversight, vendors optimize their piece, even if it hurts the bigger picture.
- Your IT provider isn’t incentivized to solve problems: If success is measured by tickets closed instead of business continuity and growth, you’ll get precisely what’s measured.
What You Should Do When the Blaming Starts
If this situation sounds familiar, here are some practical steps you can take to break the cycle:
- Start documenting everything: When accountability gets slippery, documentation becomes your best friend. Keep a written record of issues, timelines and commitments. Save all emails, tickets and meeting notes, and track who said what and when. This isn’t about being adversarial – it’s about creating clarity. When you can point to a timeline or specific promise, it’s much harder for a vendor to deflect responsibility.
- Revisit the contract: Most organizations sign a service level agreement (SLA) and never look at it again. But your agreement likely contains service-level expectations, response and resolution timelines, escalation procedures and penalties for non-performance. Reviewing these details regularly helps identify gaps and leverage the contract when vendors dodge responsibility. It also helps you determine whether the issue is a performance failure or a mismatch in expectations.
- Bring all parties together: If your vendor keeps blaming another vendor, systems or team, stop the back-and-forth. Schedule a joint call with all vendors involved and your internal stakeholders. Keep the conversation focused on solutions and ownership, not fault. When everyone is on the same page, excuses evaporate. Problems get solved faster when no one can hide behind email threads.
- Escalate: Escalation isn’t a threat – it’s a tool. If you’re stuck in a loop of frontline support, it’s time to move up the chain. Ask for a senior engineer, a team lead or an account manager. Higher-level staff often have more context, authority and incentive to resolve lingering issues.
- Know when it’s time to walk away: Sometimes, the issue isn’t a misunderstanding; it’s a pattern. If your vendor consistently avoids accountability, misses deadlines, provides vague or contradictory answers or fails to improve after feedback, it may be time to explore alternatives. Switching vendors is never fun, but staying with the wrong one costs far more in downtime, frustration and lost productivity.
Read: Navigating the Benefits of Transitioning IT Providers
Partner with Thriveon
The relationship between you and your IT vendor should be a true partnership, one built on trust and mutual accountability. When your IT vendor keeps passing the buck, it’s easy to feel powerless. But you’re not.
With the proper structure, documentation and expectations, you can regain control and steer the relationship back on track – or choose a better partner if needed.
At Thriveon, we provide robust Fractional CIO services that oversee the entire IT environment, serve as the point of contact for vendor escalations and align IT with growth, efficiency and risk reduction. Request a consultation now for more information.