IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices
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Below is one of our consultant’s sentiments (1st year as a consultant – we are the Guinea pig) and reasoning.
• I want to fully manage the active directory including adding users, printer, and the simplest thing.
• If you remove that of my responsibilities, I can’t guarantee I will be able to help you with outages or issues as I’m not the one managing it. – is this correct? What is the acceptable help I can get from the consultant for issues or outages? -
@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Below is one of our consultant’s sentiments (1st year as a consultant – we are the Guinea pig) and reasoning.
• I want to fully manage the active directory including adding users, printer, and the simplest thing.
• If you remove that of my responsibilities, I can’t guarantee I will be able to help you with outages or issues as I’m not the one managing it. – is this correct? What is the acceptable help I can get from the consultant for issues or outages?So consultant is a VERY general term. It pretty much means "not a reseller" and tons of resellers style themselves as consultants because one sounds cool and technical and the other sounds like you work at Best Buy - so there is a stigma and everyone wants to say "consultant" at neighbourhood parties, even though sales people earn more.
Consultant here sounds like an MSP or an IT oursourcer. Nothing wrong with that, we do that, and he has a point, if he isn't managing things, how can he know what you've done. BUT the issue is, we don't know what his JOB is.
So I work for NTG.... you can...
- Hire us to BE your IT department. If you want guarantees, hell yeah we aren't letting anyone else touch the stuff. You don't get to mention "guarantee" or finger pointing if you let people we don't control do anything at all. That would be insane.
- Hire us to HELP your IT department. We are there to offload work, assist when people get busy, sick or stuck, answer questions, fix things that are broken, etc. You don't get a guarantee, because we aren't the ones to hold accountable. We are there to help the existing people.
Of course he can't guarantee anything. If management asked for a guarantee, then they clearly lack the business skills necessary to interface with any outside contractor. If the consultant brought this up when asked what he needs to be able to help you, he is clearly not prepared to do the work. There is a problem here, but from the outside we can't tell who is the one that has it.
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What does he "want" to manage AD? That's a very basic task. What makes that the task for him to do? Why is the consultant determining which tasks he will do rather than you or management?
As a consultant, I can tell you, we "want" to do as much work as you will give us. We get paid to do work, our goal is to do more of it. We never want "less" work, that would be silly. That's like McDonald's wanting to sell fewer French fries. If we wanted less work, we'd just stop working and go out of business...problem solved with maximum efficiency.
So what the consultant wants is irrelevant and silly to bring up. Sure he wants that. But does he get it?
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@scottalanmiller he wanted to do everything. If we need to add user we will email him then he will do it. We want to add printer we need to contact him and he will configure it and we will be on the site to plug the printer for him while he configure everything remotely. So basically internal IT cannot even add printer in the network if we follow the consultants directive. lolz
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@c00l.ice said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Local IT Team is capable of doing the day to day operations and management needed for all of the below. Where should a consultant fit it?
In our case, we're the local IT team capable of handling day to day operations. We're all generalists because we work for an SMB. We know a fair a bit about most things, but we're not experts. There are times when we need to bring in an expert, and that's where we employ consultants.
It's like when I go and see my local doctor. Most of the time he can fix me. But there are times when he needs to send me to see a consultant at the hospital.
But I don't expect an individual consultant to be a generalist. I expect them to be a specialist - expert in their field, but ignorant of most other fields. Just like heart specialist the hospital isn't going to fix my broken leg. So either engage with an IT company that employs a number of different specialists (an Exchange guy, a VMware guy) or I employ a number of different individual companies that focus on one thing.
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@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@scottalanmiller he wanted to do everything. If we need to add user we will email him then he will do it. We want to add printer we need to contact him and he will configure it and we will be on the site to plug the printer for him while he configure everything remotely. So basically internal IT cannot even add printer in the network if we follow the consultants directive. lolz
Wow he was trying to replace you. A business should always have control of how little or how much an external contractor does. Doesn't matter if it is IT or Accounting or the person who changes the light bulbs.
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@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@scottalanmiller he wanted to do everything. If we need to add user we will email him then he will do it. We want to add printer we need to contact him and he will configure it and we will be on the site to plug the printer for him while he configure everything remotely. So basically internal IT cannot even add printer in the network if we follow the consultants directive. lolz
Sounds like he's trying to displace you. What will your job be if he is doing all the IT? You're just a bench tech if your only job is to swap out hardware. Is that what management wants you to become?
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@Dashrender said
Interesting - I kinda find this insulting - it seems more like management doesn't trust their IT team to 'do their job' if the consultant is there for anything more than a audit.
Remember the Bobs? They are consultants too...
If management feels a consultant is ever needed, you need to determine the why.
- Is it because removals are on the horizon?
- Has management lost trust in IT? (If so why? Can it be fixed)
- Do they just want to confirm everything is going ok with a second opinion.
Once everyone is on board with why X is happening, the process is a lot better for all.
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Having said that, watching a consultant swapping our entry level GPUs on 2 desktops was a sight to behold.
All consultants are equal but some are more equal than others.
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@Breffni-Potter said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@Dashrender said
Interesting - I kinda find this insulting - it seems more like management doesn't trust their IT team to 'do their job' if the consultant is there for anything more than a audit.
Remember the Bobs? They are consultants too...
If management feels a consultant is ever needed, you need to determine the why.
- Is it because removals are on the horizon?
- Has management lost trust in IT? (If so why? Can it be fixed)
- Do they just want to confirm everything is going ok with a second opinion.
Once everyone is on board with why X is happening, the process is a lot better for all.
yep yep. This was mainly what I was driving at with the insult part above.
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@Carnival-Boy said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@c00l.ice said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Local IT Team is capable of doing the day to day operations and management needed for all of the below. Where should a consultant fit it?
In our case, we're the local IT team capable of handling day to day operations. We're all generalists because we work for an SMB. We know a fair a bit about most things, but we're not experts. There are times when we need to bring in an expert, and that's where we employ consultants.
It's like when I go and see my local doctor. Most of the time he can fix me. But there are times when he needs to send me to see a consultant at the hospital.
But I don't expect an individual consultant to be a generalist. I expect them to be a specialist - expert in their field, but ignorant of most other fields. Just like heart specialist the hospital isn't going to fix my broken leg. So either engage with an IT company that employs a number of different specialists (an Exchange guy, a VMware guy) or I employ a number of different individual companies that focus on one thing.
So basically, you contact a specialist consultant based on your requirements. That's better, because here the consultant contact the vendor so if we have issue with the firewall we need to pass the consultant first before contacting the vendor for firewall.
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@AshKetchum said
So basically, you contact a specialist consultant based on your requirements. That's better, because here the consultant contact the vendor so if we have issue with the firewall we need to pass the consultant first before contacting the vendor for firewall.
That's not a consultant.
That's a reseller pretending to be a consultant.
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@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@scottalanmiller he wanted to do everything. If we need to add user we will email him then he will do it. We want to add printer we need to contact him and he will configure it and we will be on the site to plug the printer for him while he configure everything remotely. So basically internal IT cannot even add printer in the network if we follow the consultants directive. lolz
So this is VERY different than your original post. This is a consultant thinking that they are replacing internal IT.
I think we are at the wrong stage here..... so why did management bring them in, what does management want them to be doing, why is the consultant involved in asking for levels of work, what is the role of IT supposed to be, who is in charge?
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@Carnival-Boy said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
But I don't expect an individual consultant to be a generalist.
Why? If you don't expect that of internal IT, why expect it of consultants? Most consultants are generalists. The vast majority. Certainly not all, but definitely most. And almost all that do work for the SMB sector.
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@Minion-Queen said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@scottalanmiller he wanted to do everything. If we need to add user we will email him then he will do it. We want to add printer we need to contact him and he will configure it and we will be on the site to plug the printer for him while he configure everything remotely. So basically internal IT cannot even add printer in the network if we follow the consultants directive. lolz
Wow he was trying to replace you. A business should always have control of how little or how much an external contractor does. Doesn't matter if it is IT or Accounting or the person who changes the light bulbs.
Yeah, something is wrong here. It sounds like the consultant is in the position of manager and reports to no one? Why is management not stepping in?
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@AshKetchum said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@Carnival-Boy said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@c00l.ice said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
Local IT Team is capable of doing the day to day operations and management needed for all of the below. Where should a consultant fit it?
In our case, we're the local IT team capable of handling day to day operations. We're all generalists because we work for an SMB. We know a fair a bit about most things, but we're not experts. There are times when we need to bring in an expert, and that's where we employ consultants.
It's like when I go and see my local doctor. Most of the time he can fix me. But there are times when he needs to send me to see a consultant at the hospital.
But I don't expect an individual consultant to be a generalist. I expect them to be a specialist - expert in their field, but ignorant of most other fields. Just like heart specialist the hospital isn't going to fix my broken leg. So either engage with an IT company that employs a number of different specialists (an Exchange guy, a VMware guy) or I employ a number of different individual companies that focus on one thing.
So basically, you contact a specialist consultant based on your requirements. That's better, because here the consultant contact the vendor so if we have issue with the firewall we need to pass the consultant first before contacting the vendor for firewall.
So what it sounds like is that you have two IT departments. The consultants are the real ones, and you are shadow IT. Let's look at this from the other side. It sounds like, currently, the consultants are in charge. What is the role of internal IT, then? What are they to do?
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@Breffni-Potter said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@AshKetchum said
So basically, you contact a specialist consultant based on your requirements. That's better, because here the consultant contact the vendor so if we have issue with the firewall we need to pass the consultant first before contacting the vendor for firewall.
That's not a consultant.
That's a reseller pretending to be a consultant.
It probably is a reseller running a scam, BUT there are non-resellers that do this. NTG does this, we talk to the vendors or VARs for the customers so that they get full stack management. Anything internal IT would do, we do. But we are not a reseller, nor is the internal IT a reseller. There are good reasons to have your MSP/ITSP do the vendor talks, but only if you trust that they are not a reseller in any way. And there shouldn't be two layers doing the same job, that's just insane.
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@scottalanmiller said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@Carnival-Boy said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
But I don't expect an individual consultant to be a generalist.
Why? If you don't expect that of internal IT, why expect it of consultants? Most consultants are generalists. The vast majority. Certainly not all, but definitely most. And almost all that do work for the SMB sector.
Because we have generalists internally. What we don't have is specialists. Why would we employ a generalist consultant when we already have that internally?
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@scottalanmiller This is the history. The company is under a different consultant before, it gets soar and they decided to move on and get a new one.
During that time the IT is very small so mostly are outsource and internal IT has limited function. The new consultant comes in and the company also expanded then the Internal IT doubled.
Management wanted that Internal IT should be in charge of the Infrastructure with the assistance of the consultant. But the consultant / re-seller is giving this complications like doing basically everything on some of the basic functions that actually hinders internal IT to do their tasks. example printers, adding users, etc.
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@Carnival-Boy said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@scottalanmiller said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
@Carnival-Boy said in IT Consultant / Manage Service Practices:
But I don't expect an individual consultant to be a generalist.
Why? If you don't expect that of internal IT, why expect it of consultants? Most consultants are generalists. The vast majority. Certainly not all, but definitely most. And almost all that do work for the SMB sector.
Because we have generalists internally. What we don't have is specialists. Why would we employ a generalist consultant when we already have that internally?
Um....
- Because you don't need as many internally then.
- Because all generalists are not equal.
- Because it is standard practice.
- Because outside generalists have different exposure than internal ones.
- Because outside generalists have different incentives.
- Because outside generalists have a different management structure.
- More experience, lower cost, different location.
- Holiday coverage.
- Hours overage.
- Sick days.
- More eyes.
- Different resources.
99% of all ITSP needs are for generalists. SMBs almost never need specialists outside of direct vendor support for specialty software that no MSP could support anyway. What specialist needs do you have come up?
