Four “Red Flags” That It May Be Time for a New IT Provider 

Most small businesses – particularly in Charlotte, where Proactive IT is located – prefer to hire their vendors primarily because they like them and they trust them, personally. 

When it comes to hiring an IT vendor for your business, this is a bad idea. Unfortunately, there are many nice, pleasant, personally trustworthy people out there who are running IT companies that don’t have the level of operational maturity that their clients need.  

This can cause serious damage to your business – like a cybersecurity breach or critical data loss.  

So even if you personally like your IT provider, it’s important to go deeper than those feelings and determine if your vendor is providing the necessary level of service to protect and support your business.  

Here are four “red flags” that indicate you should probably be looking for a higher level of service from a different vendor: 

Red Flag #1 – They can’t answer questions with specifics. It’s not good enough for your IT provider to simply tell you that your network is secure, and your data is protected. You need to ask the tough questions – namely, the “how” question – and they need to be able to answer them. For example, your IT provider should be able to answer questions like this:  

• How will we know if a “Silent Bad Actor” breaks through our security and infiltrates our network?  
• How will you respond to a cyberattack? Do you have an Incident Response Plan in place in the event of a security breach? Will you share a written copy with my team? 

• How long will it take for us to recover and restore operations in the event of a data breach? (Note – your IT provider should have asked you, when you began working with them, what your recovery needs and objectives are. If they didn’t have this conversation with you, that’s a problem.)  

If your IT provider can’t answer questions like this – and especially if they can’t explain to you exactly *how* their various services are delivered to you, that’s a giant red flag and a sign that you should probably be looking for a different vendor.   

Red Flag #2 – Their incentives aren’t aligned with your profitability. Many IT companies make money when your business has a technology problem. If your computer system goes down, they charge you an hourly rate to fix it. If you really stop to think about it, this creates exactly the wrong incentive. As a business owner, don’t you want to avoid tech problems? That’s why, at Proactive IT, we prefer to bill our clients at a monthly flat rate. That way, we are incentivized to prevent problems from occurring in the first place.  

Are your incentives aligned with those of your IT provider? If not… that’s a problem.  

Red Flag #3 – They don’t give you access to your systems documentation and other critical information. You should have access to all of your passwords. You should have access to all of your backups. You should have access to all IT and tech-related documentation.  

Some IT providers think that by sharing this information with you, they’re making themselves less valuable, because if you have all of this knowledge, what do you need them for? Our philosophy is exactly the opposite – we give our clients full access to all systems information and documentation so that if they ever need it, for any reason, it’s available.  

If your IT company isn’t documenting their systems and processes, and/or if they’re not sharing that documentation with you… that’s a major red flag.  

Red Flag #4 – They’re not proactive and they don’t measure results. We all have the choice to be proactive or reactive in our daily life. When it comes to technology in your business… it’s absolutely essential that your IT company is proactive, not reactive. That’s because IT is all about prevention and mitigation. How can we prevent your network from being breached? How can we prevent tech failures and lost productivity? How can we plan ahead and mitigate the risk of a disaster like a fire, a hurricane, or even employee theft? How can we measure all of this?  

If your IT company is content to wait for problems to occur (so that they can bill you to solve the problems) rather than operating proactively to prevent them from occurring in the first place… then it’s time for you to look for a new IT provider.  

After reading this blog entry… what are your thoughts? Do you feel good about your relationship with your IT company and the level of service they’re providing to your business?  

If not, we’d love to chat with you. We’ve helped many businesses here in Charlotte transition away from IT vendors that aren’t delivering adequate support, and the process of transitioning to Proactive IT is much less painful than you might expect. You’re NOT stuck, even if it might feel that way. 

If you’d like to have a conversation about your organization’s IT strategy, please reach out to us via email at info@weareproactive.com or 704-464-3075 extension 3.       

Dedicated to IT security and productivity,  

 – Steve