IT Support V Management

I've been in the business many years now and I'm amazed at how little attention is given to a customers needs beyond keeping the tech running. Support has not kept up with the pace of technology and how it affects users. It's no longer a client-server fits all world. It's also a vendor serving customer serving third-party and each one needing to talk to each other.....so bring in more tech.

I compare today support relationships to a doctor who use to make house calls, gets to know their patients and watches them grow. Now you do your best research and hope they don't kill you without even knowing your name. I make this comparison because technology is the heart of most businesses, choose the wrong tech and you may find yourself dead or broke and when you call to ask what happened they've already forgotten your name.

Management is the fine art of understanding the industry a business is in and that companies place in it, then balancing the budget they have to work with against what you feel they need. This can't be accomplished with a rotating work force that many large firms gobble up, pay little, and spit out.

A large problem is a support firm that also sells. Imagine your doctor not going with the best solution for you because he doesn't make a dime of the parts he puts in you. Make sure your consultants have no stake in the tech they install. They should only make money from the hours you pay them.

Support firms are filled with managers, middle managers, presidents and vice presidents all making a living off the nameless techs that come visit you and try to do whats best for you within the guidelines of what best for the company that pays them...and while you think it's you, it's not.

In short, find a manager, make your first question "How would you protect me from you?" Your manager has all the passwords and all the names of those companies you never even knew did things for you (domain registrars, web hosts, routers and printer servers and so on and so on). If he's good he won't need to hold these things hostage, I've seen them do it.

I've ran my consulting this way for my entire career, it's made me loyal partners and close friends.

But more importantly it's made businesses successful, including mine.

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