Stop Rewarding IT When Things Break
In a typical arrangement, your outsourced IT technicians and consultant gets paid when things break. It doesn’t have to be this way, but this is still the predominant model. This arrangement is counterproductive and can breed distrust and frustration between you and your IT consultants.
What if instead of being rewarded (i.e. paid) when things break, your outsourced IT was rewarded for regular, preventative care and planning?
Consider the way we take care of our own homes:
You probably have a rhythm around your home: clean gutters in the spring, landscape during summer, winterize right before the freeze hits. All of this keeps a host of critical pieces-plumbing, wiring, roof, sump-pump, appliances, and more-working well to make your home welcoming and crisis free.
Why do we care for our homes this way? Because we’re inherently rewarded when all things are well tended and cared for.
Yet when it comes to tending the technology in our business, we often give responsibility to IT consultants who are not rewarded when all things are well tended and cared for. In fact, most IT consultants actually get rewarded when things break in the form of more work and bigger bills.
This turns an IT consultant into Mr. IT Fix It.
Poorly cared for IT is bad for your business but good for Mr. IT Fix It. Well cared for IT is good for your business but bad for Mr. IT Fix It. In our experience, no one is particularly happy with this arrangement.
We’ve worked with this arrangement for years. I think we’ve handled the inherent conflict of interest well (like many IT consultants do) because we’re genuinely committed to helping our clients do well.
That doesn’t change the fact that the arrangement is bad.
Ideally, you want your IT consultants, like you, to be rewarded when technology works with no surprises.
This arrangement exists: we call it Managed IT.
Managed IT treats technology like a homeowner treats their home, with care and prevention in mind.
How does it work? It’s simple.
Managed IT tends to all aspects of your business technology for a flat monthly fee. This incentivizes planning, prevention and care. Preventing IT problems is easier than fixing them, just like checking your sump-pump is easier than dealing with a flooded basement.
If your technology works well, Managed IT is rewarded with less total hours spent for the month. And you are also rewarded with no productivity loss for your staff, no headaches from malfunctioning technology, no wasted time on the phone with vendors, and no distractions from improving and expanding your business.
A Managed IT arrangement aligns the goals of your business and your IT firm. Well-functioning technology with a minimum of surprises rewards everyone involved.
Do you have experience with a Managed IT model? Know of other shortcomings of the traditional Mr. IT Fix It model? Chime in in the comments below, or contact us to learn more about Managed IT for your business.
[...] spoken before about Mr. IT Fix It. Mr. IT Fix It is an outsourced technology consultant who gets paid for fixing your technology when [...]