The Importance of Good Governance Over Your IT Vendors
Internet provider, printer vendor, line-of-business software: managing too many separate IT vendors has a hidden cost. Here's why.
Your internet provider, the company that handles the network, the brother-in-law who fixed the server 3-4 years ago, the vendor for your main application, another one for email. That's the reality for many business owners. It lets you patch up problems quickly. But the big-picture view is nowhere to be found.
What "big-picture view" actually means
It's worth explaining what we mean by the big-picture view. It means seeing all your IT systems as a whole that delivers tangible business value to the company, not as a collection of pieces each managed on its own island.
Think of an air compressor in a mechanic's shop. The compressor powers a multitude of tools. But you still have to make the right choices to avoid extra expenses: the size of the tubing, the pressure, the tools' connectors. Get one piece wrong and everything downstream either underperforms or costs more to fix. It's the same in IT. You have to make sure your technology choices work together to deliver optimal value, and even more value than the sum of the parts.
The first step is always to assess the company's needs. What do we do? How do we do it? Why do we do it this way? By mapping out your needs and your ways of working, you get a clear understanding of how the ecosystem functions: where you're getting maximum value, and which points are costing the company dearly in time, process, or money. Skip this exercise and you end up firefighting symptoms one at a time, never seeing the full picture.
One vendor or many: the real dilemma
One point that comes up constantly with our clients is the proliferation of vendors. There have always been two schools of thought.
A single vendor for everything. On the plus side, you can react quickly in case of an outage, and you have a single point of contact. On the downside, it's generally very expensive, and a single vendor generally can't do everything the right way. Nobody is simultaneously an expert in networking, cybersecurity, application development, and telephony.
Multiple specialized vendors. On the plus side, you get savings and quality products in each domain. On the downside, there's the "ball-tossing" syndrome between vendors in case of an outage, everyone pointing at everyone else, and you end up managing multiple points of contact yourself. And while the vendors toss the ball back and forth, it's your business that stays down.
The hybrid approach: one point of contact, layered expertise
MMO Techno's approach is hybrid. We offer a single point of contact, but we don't pretend to do everything in-house when it isn't our expertise. MMO Techno not only serves as an orchestrator for your IT vendors, but we also act as an advisor to help you make informed decisions.
Single point of contact: thanks to advanced monitoring tools and highly skilled technical engineers, we're able to anticipate and quickly diagnose technical hiccups wherever they arise in the ecosystem.
Vendor orchestrator: in the event of an application issue, MMO Techno coordinates among all the parties required to resolve the situation. We make sure every component of the chain works well together, and we propose changes when needed, instead of letting each vendor defend its own turf.
Advisor: which technology should you choose? How will today's choice affect your company in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years? The choices we make with you today have to align with your business plan, not just this quarter's budget.
What this actually changes
In all our interactions with our clients, we're consistently able to achieve savings of 3 to 10 times the amount invested with us. That's not just a number, it's the direct result of governance that eliminates waste, duplication, and technologies that don't talk to each other.
Good governance of your IT vendors lets you save money, but more importantly, it forces you to have a clearer vision of your IT operations over the medium to long term. And that clarity translates, in the end, into greater efficiency and a more profitable company.
If your IT ecosystem looks more like a contact list than a coherent system, it's probably a good time to talk to MMO Techno about it.