Last month we wrote about the two major types of IT outsourcing in the SMB space ~ outsourced talent and outsourced IT management. Next I thought it might be helpful if we explained our delivery philosophy. In a word we call it empowerment.

In more traditional models one or more ‘client’ resources are required to manage the ‘outsourced talent’. Most clients fail to effectively manage third-party resources, but in rare cases you will find highly effective managers who succeed. We believe that in either case the business loses. Specifically, in the first scenario the client isn’t likely getting what they need and in the second scenario the client is likely getting what they ‘want’ but as the song goes not what they need.

What do I mean? Simple, imagine an organization where everyone must operate on tight deadlines, deal with difficult customers and utilize computers to produce quality results. Sound like an operation you are familiar with? When your employees come to you and explain that they are going to miss their deadline because they are dealing with difficult customers you likely don’t have much sympathy. But what do you say when they suggest that their computer is the problem? If you have either an effective or ineffective manager you have a problem. Everyone has the perfect excuse to miss their deadline. Since you understand customers you won’t accept that excuse, but since you don’t understand computers you may be more likely to accept it as an excuse.

What if you empowered end-users by making them responsible for keeping their tools (i.e. technology) in good order? You already require them to keep their car running (most of your employees don’t fix their own cars), you require them to keep their phones working (most of them don’t know how to fix phones) ~ why not place the burden on them to keep their primary tool up and running?

When a business owner hires Architel he is making a decision to empower his end-users to engage directly with Architel. He can redeploy his effective or ineffective manager back into his organization and now users are responsible for their own success. How does this work? Users can be a computer’s best friend or worst enemy. Users that are responsible for results and cannot blame ‘technology’ are far more careful about their systems. They keep their data on the server (i.e. where it is backed up, not on their hard drive), they don’t load crazy screen savers, download various games and videos and they report issues faster and with more clarity.

Even here at Architel we have clients who don’t buy our delivery philosophy and you can see the results in their tickets. First, if their users enter tickets (often they will ask the manager to enter them for them) the information in the ticket is vague and confusing, such as “it’s broken, fix it now!!!!!!!” If I was an engineer taking this ticket do you think I would be excited? This user sounds mad and there is nothing I can do to help before calling him. Guess what? When we do call him back he doesn’t answer his phone, he is getting coffee because ‘it’ is broken. The user walks through the halls chatting with his coworkers explaining how ‘it’ is broken again and how he is going to miss his deadline. When he returns to his desk he might return the engineer’s call, but he will likely get voice mail and he will leave a nice message. Soon a day has passed and the user’s manager will stop by and ask him why he has built a castle with coffee cups in his cube. The user may then explain that the IT guys are to blame. You see, he isn’t responsible for getting back to work. The manager then calls our CEO who apologizes and our engineers figure out that the user had downloaded the new version of IE and his legacy application won’t work on IE7. Ug! Who told him to download new software?

Companies where the owners insist that users take responsibility have employees who are empowered to solve their own issues. They enter tickets that are detailed and specific. They escalate within our organization quickly. They take the time to make sure their issues are getting addressed in a positive and productive way. They don’t add to the problem by using their business ‘tool’ for whimsical or personal reasons. What kind of company do you want to run? One where the employees have excuses or one where the employees have the tools they need to succeed?