In an effort to lure car owners back to the dealership for repair and maintenance jobs, Ford came up with the saying, "It's your car, but it's still our baby." A similar attitude is being voiced these days by some IT staffs whose bosses might be thinking about hiring a managed service provider (MSP). A company's network is the IT staff's baby; they know it best and sometimes they can get very protective.
In fact, for MSPs trying to gain ground, a disinclined IT staff can be a deal-busting firewall. Company executives, already possibly squeamish about letting outsiders gain access to the digital heart and soul of their business, sometimes follow the advice of IT staffers not enamoured with yielding control to an MSP.
Get with it
Take it from Stephen Elliot, the man widely credited with coining the term "MSP." The former Gartner Group analyst, now the e-services leader at InteQ-a former network and systems management consulting firm that became the world's first MSP about three years ago-says reluctant IT staffs are a hurdle.
"Our biggest competitors are the traditional network and management tools already out there and, secondly, IT departments' attitudes that they can do it themselves with the right budget and right staffing," says Elliot.
He and others say IT staffs intent on dissuading executives from hiring an MSP might contend their motives are purely corporate-minded. They'll argue that those who built the network are best equipped to keep tabs on its performance. But their incentives are sometimes more self-centred.
"At a lot of companies, particularly if you go in at the wrong level on your sales call, they [the IT team] will say, 'Wait, this guy is threatening my job. What is my incentive for telling my boss about this?' says Chris Kane, director of marketing communications for SiteRock MSP. "That is definitely a problem."
