The Savvy CIO

I’ve spoken before about Mr. IT Fix It. Mr. IT Fix It is an outsourced technology consultant who gets paid for fixing your technology when it breaks.

Hiring a Mr. IT Fix It appears to be a good way to keep costs down as you only pay when you need his assistance. But this relationship can actually end up increasing your technology costs because no one is tending to the regular maintenance of your technology to prevent problems and reduce costs.

Which is cheaper: installing a new battery in a smoke detector or dealing with a house fire?

I know, an extreme example, but it illustrates the point.

Mr. IT Fix It makes almost nothing for installing a battery but can make a lot for putting out a fire. In contrast, a Managed IT team–paid a flat monthly fee–will gladly spend a lot less time and energy performing this kind of necessary, low-profile work because it means they (like you) won’t have to deal with a time-consuming crisis (during which, like you, they will not make any money).

In short, you want your outsourced IT to care for your technology as if they own it.

The key question: is your relationship (and compensation structure) with your outsourced IT treating them like Mr. IT Fix It or like Managed IT?

Here are five lessons learned from homeowners about how business leaders want their outsourced IT to behave.

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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:

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In general, there are two roles of IT: reactive and proactive.

Your business needs both of these roles. Ignore one and you will have a problem, either now or later.

The Reactive Role
This is IT as fix-it person: supporting users, administering systems, hooking up new PCs and printers, and replacing parts. This role keeps your systems and users working. Reactive IT is a necessary cost center, with little return on investment.

The Proactive Role
This is IT as business strategist: planning for contingencies, improving productivity, adding capabilities, ensuring compliance and security, advising on emerging technologies, identifying business issues and potential solutions. This role helps you reach business goals and requires a high-level viewpoint on technology and business. Proactive IT is a business asset and can significantly improve your bottom line with reduced cost or increased revenue.

A recent study suggests that as businesses trim costs, IT managers at small companies are spending nearly 60% of their time on administrative tasks. When business leaders do not identify and value the proactive role, resources end up funneled into a reactive maintenance mode. If the IT managers in this study are skilled enough to be proactive, their companies are wasting a valuable resource and hampering long-term growth.

If you have an IT staff in house, what role do they fill? Are you compensating them correctly for that role? Depending on their skill level, consider outsourcing to free up internal staff or to provide proactive strategy. If you don’t have internal IT staff, be sure your outsourced service providers have the team-based expertise necessary to attend to both roles.