The devil is in the details…
Growing up, the idea of navigating corporate contracts, service providers, and IT departments seemed like an alien world to me. Yet, here I am, two decades into a career that continually intrigues me.
But before you get too excited, let's dive into these topics, shall we? My aim is simple: to provide practical insights that save you time, money, and raise the bar for us all.
First on the list: service provider contracts. We'll explore:
- How these contracts function, from MSAs to SOWs.
- Red flags to watch for, such as SLAs and QBRs.
- The crucial matter of software ownership.
Service provider contracts come in two flavors: MSA and SOW. The MSA outlines what the provider will (and won't) do in your environment, while the SOW tailors these services to your company's specific needs.
Now, about those red flags. SLAs, or service level agreements, can be a sneaky way for providers to dictate acceptable service levels. Picture this: you're grappling with an Outlook issue, but the SLA designates it as a low priority, leaving you waiting days for resolution. Dubious, right?
And let's not forget QBRs. These quarterly reviews often overlook critical issues, focusing instead on projects that pad the provider's bottom line.
Another key consideration is software ownership. Does your company own its software? Can you administer it independently? These questions matter more than you might think, especially when your 'cost-effective' provider falters, binding you to lengthy contracts and making transitions painful.
When reviewing contracts, take your time. Seek expert advice to avoid costly mistakes that could haunt you for years.
Negotiating smarter contracts means revising SLAs for realistic outcomes, ditching unnecessary QBRs, and asserting your right to software ownership. While month-to-month agreements are ideal, early termination clauses offer flexibility if things go south.
Remember, any provider unwilling to meet you halfway isn't worth your time. Opt for those who prioritize collaboration and transparency.
If you've made it this far without nodding off, treat yourself to a coffee. And if you enjoyed this blend of insights and dad jokes, let's continue the conversation on LinkedIn.
Got a challenge you're grappling with? Let's tackle it together. Reach out to mark@thesisinc.io
Race to the bottom
For my New Year's resolutions in ‘24, I have decided to call more bullshit on service providers and provide some stories that will unfortunately sound all too familiar. My goal is to give our industry a well-needed kick in the ass and challenge providers to think and operate differently.
Let's dig in, shall we?
Insert victim client. They frequently have problems gaining access to laptops. This is the equipment they purchased and own outright. Their providers' hardware team held their hardware hostage on-site at their depot. They could never access a laptop when they needed it most. People were stuck using personal equipment in a bind.
To add insult to injury, the hardware team lacked the skill and foresight to back up user settings and profile data when provisioning new hardware during a warranty repair. This wasn’t a one-time issue. Every time a laptop went out, it was not configured properly. The recipient of a warranty replacement – an executive with a laundry list of critical priorities – would have to set up their laptop from scratch after the inconvenience of sending it out in the first place.
You’re probably wondering why I am ranting about laptops. They didn’t take down a server, and no mailboxes were lost or data destroyed. You’re right! But they wasted your time and money. They made your new hire onboarding experience look like the aftermath of a Florida State University frat party. This leaves a lasting impression and this lack of care about something trivial as a laptop impacts productivity and your bottom line.
The problem with laptop provisioning was just one issue in a list a mile long. The client stopped contacting the provider when there were any problems. They knew it might be easier to solve in-house or work around issues using their most technical non-IT staff. This was a service they were paying good money for too. Here is where the MSP trope of all-you-can-eat models and siloed IT ticket takers fails to deliver service at an emerging company. Let’s be clear, this leads to pain for both the client and the provider. The provider does want to help, but they are unable to assist in a timely fashion due to their support model and lack of skill.
Encountering these types of problems day in and day out started to get the wheels turning for me. Where does this problem stem from? It’s multifaceted obviously, but what is perpetuating it? Is it workflow, skill, quality control, money, or process? There are so many variables and all of this plays into it.
To me, this was a service provider copying the industry standard for a depot model. They saw that larger providers use very inexperienced staff to assembly-line their laptops. They followed suit by staffing it with lower-skill and inexperienced personnel.
The provider thought to use lower-skilled resources for a core service such as Depot because these were just laptops, right? These weren’t Palo Alto firewalls or complex HPC systems in AWS crunching sequencing data. But they missed something so glaringly obvious. Laptops are the first and last experience an employee has with their company. It is the tool that everyone in the company uses to get their work done. Why would you staff a crucial service with low-skill workers knowing what the potential impact could be?
These types of decisions should be obsessed over, and we should regularly review these services to ensure they keep meeting our needs. That means selecting the right hardware with the best service track record with the right specs to last and perform for the entire 3-year lifecycle. The MDM software is scalable and flexible. You can automate the shit out of it and get it to integrate all of your other core systems seamlessly. When a new user starts, they can log into their laptop and get to work without having to worry.
The moral of this story and all of the subsequent stories I am going to tell you is the same. Emerging companies will get tremendous value by partnering with the right consultants to pair them with providers that want them to have a good experience.
Don’t be fooled by MSP tactics in the form of low-cost per-user AYCE (all-you-can-eat) service buffets. Just like real buffets that quality is rarely good and you regret having dined there afterward.
Got an IT Problem you’re trying to solve? Let’s talk about it. To see if there is a solution or provider fit in our ecosystem, contact me at mark@theisisinc.io
A Different Way
For better or worse, businesses have evolved to eschew their biggest yet most important operational overhead for as long as possible. Yes, we’re talking about the IT department, the “no helpdesk”, the “goon platoon”, the “geek squad”, or whatever horrendous moniker is now being bestowed on IT. Companies can achieve this by partnering with a managed IT services provider or MSP. MSPs, love them or hate them, they’re here to stay.
Here is what I know to be true from my past 2 decades of experience… Very few providers can understand their client's needs fully. Even if they do, they cannot plan and execute their needs properly and at the pace required. They are not staffed accordingly to do so. They typically deliver basic support as a service (think ticket takers and phone answerers who always escalate to some poor, overworked, higher-tier sysadmin). What happens realistically is they can keep their client's heads above water. However, they don’t evolve the client's infrastructure or technical workflows needed to scale the clients based on their growth trajectory. This sets the client up for failure in multiple facets including technical debt, compliance, security risks, and performance, meaning the user experience is bad, it takes too long to onboard a user or solve a problem.
You’re probably asking yourself, why does this happen? My observation is that MSPs operate off of flawed models. The models, in theory, aren’t inherently bad, it’s the thought process and execution. ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) gives the IT department an operational framework based on various roles of technicians to be able to perform services to support a company’s IT infrastructure. No question, this is needed for many companies, otherwise IT would be chaos. The next model is AYCE (all you can eat), service providers offer clients as much service as they want at a dollar amount per user or device. Hell, most providers will do you a solid and bundled software into that cost too. You’re saving tons of money that way, right? It’s predictable and cost-effective. How could this be bad?
Here is where it falls apart. Your resources are not yours, they’re shared. They work across dozens of companies. This means they don’t understand your company, your goals, or your technology holistically. They’re operating off of a script or a one-size-fits-all document that they wrote for all 82 of their clients hoping there isn’t a unique process or anomaly that will require escalation to a more experienced resource. This shared resource is buying them time and covering their asses they cleverly called out in the contract as a Service Level Agreement (SLA). This means you can’t penalize them financially when they deliver shitty service because they technically pick up the phone and do it quickly.
The biggest problem with this is the middleman. The simple problem you called in with, always requires escalation, and you’re impacted until they speak with the escalations team. You don’t even get to speak with the man behind the curtain, they might as well not even exist. You’re thinking to yourself, why can’t I get escalations on the first call? Don’t get me wrong, the ticket taker is super friendly and performed everything correctly, but we could have skipped a step and I would be back in business schlepping PowerPoint slides for a town hall meeting that my boss desperately needs to see before lunch.
Speaking of middlemen, MSPs continue to double down on roles such as Service Delivery Managers. This is a more articulate and presentable version of the level one helpdesk person who can’t solve your problem directly. They come armed to obligatory meetings with meaningless data in the forms of charts and graphs to show you your anger isn’t justified in your users not getting the help they need, because of their SLA. What would happen if ITSM-focused providers stopped paying 6 figures to non-billable/functional roles and started hiring seasoned technicians who could perform first-call resolution?
Aside from the grammar and run-on sentences, there is so much wrong with these last few paragraphs, that I don’t even know where to begin. But I do know this, MSPs are selling an adulterated product that does not scale if you’re an emerging or bootstrapped company. They are banking on making money off of software licenses and underpaid and inexperienced staff. They are banking on you eventually hiring people who have the skill and experience to perform the strategy and build out the necessary operational framework for the IT organization.
What is the solution for a bootstrapped emerging company? The consulting service model! I know what you’re thinking, the last time I used a consultant, they sent over a couple of noodle heads, who charged me $400/hour for an 80-page report that was written in buzzwords and corporate platitudes telling me what I already knew. When I talk about consultants in this context, these are industry veterans who have 10-20 years of experience in the trenches building companies from the ground up. That means deploying one system at a time with many phone calls and tickets all happening concurrently. They know how to assess their surroundings and have seen all of the technical debt and shenanigans caused by many of the same providers. They will always devise a tried and true strategy that is custom-tailored to your needs to industry best practices, optimized for the best user experience. They execute, often using a phased approach that doesn't greatly impact or fatigue the users. That is what I mean by consultant.
All of that sounds great, but seriously they charge by the hour and that adds up. Can I afford this long-term? The answer is yes, consulting and the hourly model are affordable because you’re using it less (unless you’re scaling rapidly). Hear me out. As consultants, they design solutions to solve problems, not just keep your head above water. That means getting rid of all technical debt by architecting and deploying the correct infrastructure and workflows. All of it is designed with scalability and user experience in mind. With a good consultant, users are not calling about the same problems twice. They are always looking to automate the mundane processes including onboarding, password resets, and permissions to email distribution lists and files/folders. A good consultant wants you to call them less. They want you to call them when you have that massive problem of M&A and you’re not exactly sure how integrating 300 people in North Carolina is going to work with your existing infrastructure.
What are the benefits of using the consulting model long-term?
Experience. As mentioned above the barrier to entry for most consultants is typically over a decade of professional experience. This is invaluable for companies that don’t have an IT department and need someone to guide proper decision-making early on.
The consulting model allows the client flexibility. This means you can easily scale up or scale down. You can augment your IT department as you see fit. You’re not locked into an all-encompassing service that ties into every facet of your IT infrastructure. The best part is that you’re not locked into a long-term contract. You can operate month-to-month without fear of penalty.
Cost optimization. Having an expert who understands licensing and SaaS platforms, can help you eliminate redundant software, putting strong processes into place to remove licenses when they are no longer in use. The consultant understands company and team performance, when it’s time to scale, and when it’s time to dial it back saving you money and preventing burnout of key resources.
Trust and partnership. There are some things you can’t put a price tag on, they happen over time and with consistent decision-making. When the company and user base trusts you and the IT department, everyone’s lives are easier. You have a partner you can bounce ideas off of and make informed decisions using real data and experience. This means new technology can be deployed easier and users will have the confidence to conduct their work with ease and stability.
Accountability - I have often wondered why I have done my best work not working for an organization, but with them as a consultant. For one it allows me the autonomy to think and act freely on the problems I am trying to solve. Secondly, it’s my reputation on the line. I don’t get to operate with a safety net where someone from a larger organization will bail me out. Decision-making comes from a place of accountability. You better believe I am going to measure twice and cut once.
That’s enough rambling for today. Got an IT problem you’re trying to solve? Let’s talk about it. To see if there is a solution or provider fit in our ecosystem, contact me at mark@thesisinc.io