IT can no longer simply be seen as just a support service for the different business units. It must be understood in the context of the value and transformation it can deliver for the business. And that has implications for how you deal with your IT service provider.

Organisations everywhere are thinking about digitalisation – and what it can deliver for their business.

As a result, the way we think about IT is changing; IT can no longer be thought of a support service to other business units.

IT must lead on business transformation programmes.

Deloitte sums up the potential and the need for change: “In the digital age, technology has increasingly become a primary driver of business transformation and growth, ending the era of business-led, technology-enabled organisations. Today’s successful organisations – and their CIOs – are adopting a technology-led, business-enabled mindset to drive transformation, growth, and revenue.”

It means that organisations that outsource their IT need a very different relationship with their IT outsource partner than they had before.

Turning the old model on its head

When we first started out delivering IT support services, the majority of our would-be customers would come to us and say, “my current provider is so slow at responding to my requests when things are broken, can you do it better?”.

We can of course; getting the day job right remains just as important as it always has been.

However, potential new customers now approach us with something very different on their minds: “how can I use IT to help my business function better?” or “I need better advice and visibility of what my IT partner is doing.”

It’s a huge shift that reflects the increasing digitalisation of our lives, work and society. And its also a great opportunity.

Working more collaboratively

When you choose to work with an IT outsourcing company with this idea of improving the business at the forefront of your mind, it is a very different relationship than when you were simply relying on them to fix things when they went wrong.

Of course, having reliable IT support that acts fast and reliably when you do have a problem is still of huge importance and the focus of much of our energies. But let’s assume your IT is going to work; that’s what we’re here for, after all.

What conversations do you need to have beyond that?

How are you going to bring your IT partner into the business so they understand your operations and can help you identify the potential opportunities for digitalisation and improvement?

How are you going to access the best advice?

Having the right conversations

There are whole series of conversations or workshops or exploratory calls that need to happen, so that your IT partner can deliver the best advice and proactive support for you.

In order to help you achieve your business goals, your IT partner needs to understand those goals: what are they? How do you plan to achieve them? What constraints have you identified?

How can we help you overcome them?

Your relationship has to move on a couple of steps: away from the customer-supplier model, beyond partnership, so that your IT support company is really an extension of your in-house team; seamlessly working together to achieve a common purpose.

The Grant McGregor approach

The Grant McGregor team is always on hand to answer questions and provide advice.

We know communication is an essential part of day-to-day support, and we’re now building up processes that help us to ensure that the right communication happens about your business goals too.

In addition to monthly reports that provide the visibility over what we do for you each month (the transactional, fixing things when we go wrong, and making they don’t go wrong in the first place stuff) we schedule quarterly business reviews with our clients.

It’s during these meetings we can start to unpick all the big picture stuff and really hone in on the improvements IT can deliver for your operations and how it can help you achieve your strategic goals.

In this age of Coronavirus, our quarterly reviews are still taking place – in many respects, they are more important than ever. Scheduling a group videoconference via Teams is a simple solution and helps to ensure that each of customers is well-placed to face head on the new and unique business challenges that are arising from this global pandemic.

We’re still on hand to answer queries for new customers too, of course.

If you’d like to schedule a business review call with our consultants, simply give us a call on 0808 164 4142.

Or if you'd like to know more about creating an IT strategy guide, you can also download our free guide to find out more: