Why You Should Tell Us Right Away If Your ISP or Other Vendor Tells You to Change Your I.T.

I.T. service provider, like Texas I.T. Pros, is that those various vendors are focused on a single part of your technology system. An I.T. service provider is focused on your entire technology system as a whole and ensures all parts are working together to serve your business needs. What can sometimes happen when a cloud service provider, or other tech vendor, is helping you troubleshoot an issue, is that they’ll make a suggestion to change a part of your I.T. system, which could end up messing up other areas of your business processes. Or a necessary change is made that impacts all your other systems, but the I.T. provider is never made aware of it, so an outage of your connected services occur that could’ve been avoided. The average employee uses 36 cloud-based services each day. For example, if you’re having trouble with a cloud solution, that vendor’s tech support person might tell you to disable a certain security setting to see if that fixes the problem. But your I.T. provider isn’t made aware, so they don’t know to adjust your other I.T. security to pick up the slack and prevent a vulnerability. That one software vendor usually won’t see past their own platform, so their recommendation only takes their software into consideration and not what it may “break” in your entire technology infrastructure. This is why it’s vital to contact your I.T. service provider first, if you receive any recommendations to change your technology setup from one of your vendors, whether it’s your ISP or a software vendor.

Don’t Let an Uninformed Recommendation “Break” Your I.T. Infrastructure When we’re providing I.T. consulting for our North Texas clients, we explain to them that an efficient technology infrastructure means all pieces connected and working together. Too often, businesses end up with an ad hoc I.T. system, because software, cloud services, and other components have been added without considering the whole. We help them optimize by sharing data and processes across their services to save time and money. A fully optimized I.T. system runs like a well-oiled machine, but if one vendor of one part of the system makes an uninformed recommendation or that recommendation isn’t relayed right away to your I.T. provider, it can cause downtime, result in security issues, or leave you with a bigger problem than you started with costing you time and money. Here's why it’s vital to contact us first before making any vendor recommended changes to your I.T. infrastructure.

All Vendor Techs Aren’t Created Equal Some businesses make the mistake of treating all technology vendors equally and believing they’ll know how one setting change can impact another software or system. This usually isn’t the case. When you speak with technical support for your ISP or a software vendor, they’ll know about their own product and advise you only for that, but won’t have expertise in how a change may impact other software, security, or areas of your entire technology layout. Rather than being focused on a single area, I.T. service professionals are trained in multiple systems (hardware and software) and will know if a vendor’s recommendation is going to help or hurt your technology system as a whole.

Software or Hardware Changes Another problem that can arise is when a client’s software or hardware provider tells them that they must install a software update by a certain date, or their software or hardware will stop working. The information is never relayed by the client to the I.T. provider that is handling their updates, so that date passes without the update happening and an outage of the software or hardware occurs, which could’ve easily been avoided.

A Vendor Could be Trying to Upsell You A vendor could tell you that adding another product they have is important if you want to do what you need to with your business processes. But the product they are trying to upsell you may do something that another system you use can already accomplish. Your I.T. service provider can tell you if a software recommendation makes sense, or if you would just be spending money for something another program you use can already do for you.

DNS Server Conflicts A common occurrence is when a client’s internet service provider tells them they are retiring the DNS (Domain Name System) server that their business is using, and they have to switch to a different DNS address. But the client never tells their I.T. service provider, so we find out only after the old server has been taken offline, resulting in a costly outage until we can figure out what happened and get the new DNS information. This is a situation that can easily be avoided by communicating all ISP (and other vendor) changes/recommendations to us immediately.

Security Could Be at Risk Network security is something that’s critical in today’s digital business climate. Just one major data breach can cause a company to be harmed irreparably. The average cyberattack costs a business $200,000. Over half of all small businesses had a data breach within the past year. One specific change to a modem or router setting or to the security settings of a cloud service, can leave your network at risk. Your managed services provider that is taking care of monitoring and managing your network security will know whether or not a security setting recommendation made by a vendor is okay or will leave you vulnerable.

Important Automations Could Be Disconnected Connecting all your systems so they can share data and automate processes to reduce rekeying of information or manual tasks is one of the ways that providers like Texas I.T. Pros help companies lower costs while doing more every day. One vendor recommendation that doesn’t take into consideration those important cross-platform connections and automations could end up breaking the system and leaving you with data not being recorded properly from one software to another. This is another area where your I.T. professional can help by alerting you before a vendor recommendation breaks a business process that you worked hard to put in place.

Keep Your Entire I.T. Infrastructure Operating Efficiently Texas I.T. Pros will look after your entire I.T. infrastructure as a whole, and help you optimize to keep all parts working together, reducing costs and redundancies. Contact us today to schedule an I.T. consultation! Call 940-239-6500 or reach out online.