Does Your IT Provider Understand Your Business Model? 

Technology exists to support your business – not the other way around.  

At Proactive IT, we understand this. It’s one of our key differentiators – because the truth is that most IT vendors out there are technologists through and through. They understand technology, but they don’t understand how technology interfaces with the actual business operations of the clients they serve.  

(A few months back I wrote an entire blog entry around this topic. Click the link if you’d like to read it.) 

Today I want to drill a little bit deeper into this subject. And specifically, here is the question I want you to consider: 

Does your IT provider understand your business model? Do they understand how your business operates – and specifically how your business makes a profit? 

If they’re going to be an effective partner as your business grows… they NEED to understand your business operations. 

Let me give you an example.  

At Proactive IT, many of our clients are professional services organizations – law firms, financial firms, consulting organizations, and so forth.  

Fundamentally, their business model involves selling time: their team does work on behalf of their clients, and typically bills at an hourly rate, monthly retainer, or project-based “flat fee” pricing.  

What that means is that the more productive their employees are, the more profitable the business will be. To put it simply, for most of our clients: Employee Productivity = Profitability 

That means, in order to be an effective IT partner, we need to focus not only on cybersecurity and data protection… but also on maximizing the productivity of our clients’ teams.  

Here’s a very practical example of what that looks like: 

Every IT provider knows that it’s important to keep computer systems up-to-date with all the latest patches and updates. The easiest way to do this is simply to turn on “Automatic Updates” so that their clients’ computers will automatically download and install updates as soon as they’re available. 

That is what most IT companies do – it’s a solution that makes sense from a technical standpoint. 

But the result of that solution is… their clients’ computers often download and install an update in the middle of the workday, which means the computer can’t be used for a period of time, so that employee’s productivity drops to zero until the update is completed.  

That is a completely unacceptable solution. It’s actively undermining employee productivity… which is how your business makes money!  

At Proactive IT, we work with our clients to figure out when and how to execute these updates at a time that does NOT interfere with employee productivity.  

This may sound like a “little thing” – but if your business has 30 employees and each one of them loses 45 minutes of productivity in a month because of unnecessary system updates, that’s 22.5 hours of lost productivity that month. Depending on your hourly billing rates, that could easily be $5,000 – $10,000 per month in lost revenue simply because your IT provider doesn’t proactively schedule system updates at a time that won’t be disruptive.  

And the reason that happens… is because the IT provider doesn’t understand the business model. 

So, I’ll ask once more: Does your IT provider understand your business model? Do their solutions, processes, and workflows support and enhance your operation? 

If not, you deserve better. You deserve to work with an IT partner that understands your business model and creates solutions that support your operations, your growth, and your profitability.   

If you’d like to have a conversation about your business 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