Managing Your IT Provider

By Douglas Heyman

Your IT (information technology) provider, either an in-house staffer or an outsourced consultant, can be one of your greatest assets — if you have the right person/people. If you don’t, IT could be your worst nightmare.

There are many reasons to switch providers: You’ve outgrown their skills; they can’t give you enough time; their response time is too slow. Your business may have changed focus, requiring a more vertically focused IT expert who is more familiar with your company.

Unfortunately, many businesses feel trapped by their IT people, as some may try to keep the “keys to your castle” from you to protect their own interests. The information is legally yours, but this doesn’t help much when your IT person is difficult or unresponsive. Know “what you need to know” about your company from an IT standpoint. This is true even if you are completely satisfied with your current situation. In fact, a good IT person will ensure that up to date information is easily accessible at all times.

A basic cheat sheet must tell who is your:
• Domain Registrar — where you register your ownership of www. mycompany.com)
• DNS Provider — where the rest of the world learns where www. mycompany.com lives;
• Web and Mail hosts — where your email comes from and where your website resides;
• ISP -- Internet service provider, how you get connected to the Internet;
• Phone Service provider — plus outside service providers associated with your PBX or service.

Make certain you have account information, yearly costs and, most importantly, logins and passwords for all of the above. Be sure, too, that you are listed as a valid point of contact so that you can remove people from the list if and when the need arises. Know whether your Internet service is dynamic or static. If it’s static, you’ll need to know your IP range, Subnet, and DNS configurations.

If you have Mail, File, SQL or Domain Controller servers, along with firewalls, switches and printers, it’s important to know the IP addresses, login/passwords and any special configuration information for your devices. Some of this information is reasonably easy to obtain (such as a device’s IP address). If a new IT person needs to make changes, he or she will need administrative access to those devices. A port forward or access rule set listing of the open ports and where they are directed will be helpful to the incoming team.

Know if your IT provider uses any additional administrative passwords. Immediately upon terminating a provider, change all passwords in the organization. At the very least, change all administrative level passwords and any passwords the old provider may have known.

So, how do you choose a new IT team? Talk to your colleagues at other companies, find out who they use and if they’re satisfied. Check references and note how much experience the provider has in your markets. Sometimes an IT person can be locked into a single methodology, which might not be quite right for you. You want someone who has the flexibility to find solutions to your problems, rather than trying to make your problems to fit someone else’s solutions.

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