Technology

Have You Outgrown Your Current IT Provider? 5 Signs

Businesses rely on the relationships they make. Whether it’s through collaboration or outsourcing, these relationships influence the success of a business. And just like any relationship, there is the potential for them to fade over time. 

This may be due to a number of factors but if that’s the case for your business, it’s important you fix the problem before it gets worse. As an IT provider, the company you use should be someone that continues to grow and evolve with your business.

With that being said, here are five signs that your business has outgrown the IT provider you’re with.

Outdated cybersecurity

Network security is essential, especially when there are great threats from hackers and cyber attacks that are becoming more sophisticated. With that being said, any business that uses the online world should be prepared to stay on top of its cybersecurity. 

Your current provider might have been meeting all your initial expectations, but if the company you’re using isn’t advancing in its knowledge and software when it comes to protecting you, then it’s time to let them go. 

Whether it’s running expired software or not giving your employees the relevant training needed to keep them and the company’s data protected, these are clear signs that your business is at risk. An outdated cybersecurity infrastructure is not what you need in this modern-day world as a business.

Reliance on external solutions to supplement

As an outsourced IT service, you should be getting any and all the support you need when it comes to your IT security. If you find yourself relying on external solutions to supplement the lack of help from your current IT provider, then this is a problem. Not only are you not getting a service you were paying for to begin with, but you’re also likely to end up paying more to make up for their lack of assistance.

Of course, there are suppliers that you use that simply don’t have the resources or knowledge to develop and advance in the way that your business is doing. It’s a natural progression to switch to different suppliers when they can no longer provide what you need.

Unclear services and costs

Are you constantly going back and forth with your IT provider when it comes to costs and prices each month? If that’s the case, then it might be time to move on. Your IT provider should be able to adapt and provide a breakdown of your costs and services each month.

It might be that your capacity has surpassed what your vendor can comfortably supply. There’s also a chance that you might have outgrown your contract and simply need to sit down and negotiate a new one. 

However, if you’re finding that you are spending more and not getting the right services, then it might be worth it to look for a more capable and cost-effective service.

Not based in business strategy

It’s important that your business strategy aligns with your technology’s policies, processes, and infrastructure. When it comes to your IT provider, they should be focused on the discussion of your IT strategy. 

It’s a partnership at the end of the day and your business strategy needs to work seamlessly with your IT provider’s own strategy for your technology. Not being on the same page is only going to cause confusion and potentially risks to your business.

Frequent downtime and troubleshooting

Your employees are a clear indication of how well your IT provider is performing for your company. Speak to your staff and see what they say about the quality of IT support they receive. If troubleshooting problems are taking longer to fix or there’s frequent downtime, then this should be a red flag. 

These excessive wait times can be the difference between a project being completed and being delayed. That’s not something you want for your business at any point. From your support tickets being delayed in their completion to losing internet connection or problems with your servers, they’re all signs that your managed IT services are no longer helpful.

Outgrowing a supplier’s service is common for many businesses. The danger of holding on to one out of loyalty can potentially do more damage than good to your business. Make sure you move on from a supplier when you’ve outgrown them.

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Chris Turn

Chris Turn is the pseudonym of a journalist and writer who has published short stories, essays, and criticism in the Los Angeles Times, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the New York Times. Her most recent book, a novel, is The Summoning (The HarperCollins Canada, 2014). She lives with her husband in Toronto.

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