Have you ever tried to get support on your custom business application from your IT guy?
My clients need assistance at all sorts of levels with their software, and most of the time it is beyond our skill set to provide assistance. This is not embarrassing for us, this is normal for our complex industry. The solution is to build sound three-way relationships between you, IT support people like us, and the people who know their software.
Each industry has its own unique applications, from Apparel21 for clothing manufacture and distribution to Rockend for real estate agents and IMIS for member-based organisations. There are literally thousands of programs to support, and you don't use yours the same way everyone else uses theirs.
Sensible software development companies realise that their skills are in industry expertise and software development. So they move away from technical support of your computers and the need for this three-way relationship is required.
Sometimes it gets one more step removed when the application is something like SAP or Salesforce.com, because SAP and Salesforce.com cannot provide affordable services to the SME client directly and a third party software consultant is required to help you with implementation and on-going support/enhancements specific to your business.
For each of these applications it takes months and even years of training to become an expert at managing and using it within a business. The cost of this is too high for a technical service company to look after more than one or two applications well.
The solution is about building the right relationships between you, your IT support guy, the software vendor and your consulting partner.
So the method for getting good support for your complete IT system, which may include multiple custom applications and a range of hardware solutions, is to find a company that plays well with others to create a solution that works well for your business.
You need to quiz your IT support company to ensure that they are happy to contact your software vendors and consultants to ensure that relationship works and problems will not "fall in the gaps", as this is where lost time and increased costs of managing your IT systems comes from.
It is important that your technical services people have a healthy respect for application development and support to ensure they are capable of building and maintaining the three-way relationship. If the tech guys are too overbearing or pushy, the developers and consultants will not come to the table to agree to solutions that require co-operation from all parties.
And if your application providers are promising to support your computer network too - beware! They are unlikely to be very bothered about or skilled in any part of your network that isn't specifically related to their software application.
Go ahead and share your experiences with me!
David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.
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