On Wednesday some of our clients experienced problems with broadband. It was a short ‘outage’ lasting around 15mins from 08:50 – 09:05. Once over, we resolved any remaining issues and contacted the customers affected to explain it had been a problem with the broadband provider and that things were now back to normal. Customer contact is important and so making sure our clients know whats going on is vital.

At around 10:00 we received an explanation as to why this outage had happened. In order to offer you the full majesty of the complex, technical and frankly ludicrous language used, I have included it below :

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At 8.55 a new BGP customer was brought online. They sent a full routing table to us rather than the aggregated /21 they own. Due to a misconfiguration, the prefix limit filter we had in place did not limit what we were receiving. The additional prefixes in turn caused us to trip maximum limits set by our peers and transit providers which closed BGP sessions down, ultimately preventing connectivity to and from the wider internet.
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What was that you said ?

Where do I start ! Well firstly I’ll be frank with you. I understand around 30% of the above explanation and its really only the bit about a ‘routing table’ which I know is used by Internet computers to let information flow (or web pages appear). Therefore, this is something about that table being affected and stopping the flow of information. But the point is to highlight that this level of technical language is not necessary, especially for the vast majority of clients who are business users, not technicians.

It put me in mind of a conversation I had with a group of women at a networking event the day before. It was the usual situation of “Hi, what do you do?” and I have learned over time not to talk too much about IT as it often turns people off. IT people have a reputation for being a bit dull………….. no really !

Tell them how you can help, not what you do

What I try to do in order to make any IT issue more understandable is to offer a simple explanation and a real world example. So I replied “Well, I help people get the most from their technology investments and make IT work as they expect, which it rarely does when you take it out of the box”.

Now that went down very well and conversation flowed almost immediatly along the lines of “Oh, you are so right, it took me ages to get my [insert latest gadget name] to work when I bought it”. I could have gone on about ADSL, Gigabit Switches, Point-2-Point VPN, VoIP etc, etc, etc…………. but its not necessary. That sort of language is only relevant for the small number of technicians who work at the high level of IT day-2-day.

Don’t Panic!

What business people need is someone that listens to their real world needs and understands the challenges, the explains it to a technician in ‘geek’ language. The two need not, and should not mix. The best way to explain this process is to use a reference from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

In that book there is a reference to a Babel Fish which, if placed in the ear, can translate any known language you hear into your own language; French to English, German to English or Vogon to English; You get the point. Well I often describe myself as the IT Babel Fish; someone who can turn gobbledygook into a language business owners understand.

So, the next time you speak to any IT person and they start filling the conversation with geek language, simply do what it says on the back of the Hitchhikers Guide [Dont Panic!] and ask them to explain it in plain English please.

Its been an interesting few weeks with many of Abussi’s clients looking to grow and invest wisely for long term stability and flexibility. I’ve attended a number of meetings where clients have asked for advice on how best to make an investment in their business infrastructure, along with a desire to try and future proof themselves as best as they can.

Off-set this against the large corporate clients we support where the service we provide is mostly ‘bodies on the ground’ to ‘walk the floor’ and demonstrate that something is being done. There is a significant difference between the service we provide to smaller clients (5-30) and the corporate work where we are often a subcontracted partner.

IT is Simple

Many small business owners have experience in working for larger companies; they have experience of how the large corporate world operates and how they are a very small piece in a huge jigsaw. This sense of not being able to make a difference is often the reason why they, at some point, find themselves running their own business where they can affect positive change and value.

This is exactly my background. As an ex NHS Project Manager I found I could affect very little change or make any significant difference and this was, in part, a reason to go it alone. This forms the core of why I now prefer to work with smaller business and those where Abussi’s involvement CAN make a difference. Our work with larger corporates is simply contract fulfilment and often we simply fix problems, put plasters over them and find ourselves back at the same point some weeks or months later.

Playing with the Big Boys

Those owners of smaller businesses who have aspirations for a form of IT support similar to the one they experienced while in the corporate world are missing a trick. By working with an outsourced IT provider you can gain a wealth of knowledge, experience & ideas while benefiting from an IT partner that will have many similar clients, all of whom will have experienced similar problems to yourself. This transfer of ‘best practice’ will give you the edge over those who simply see the IT man as ‘The guy with the screwdriver that fix’s it when it breaks’.

The reality is that hardware and it’s support is the easy bit of our business. PC’s and Servers are reliable and can be purchased at a price that has fallen year on year for the last decade. The real value an IT provider can (and should) offer to your business is in how you can best use this investment to bring a competitive advantage to your organisation.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your IT Support company is just a bunch of guys with screwdrivers to call upon when the system fails. Use your partnership with a forward thinking IT support provider to take advantage of their knowledge, skills and understanding of how you can best use your IT investment.

You might be wondering why this latest Blog isn’t about the current trend in Cloud Services or Email filtering…………… but in my opinion, IT services are purchased on the basis of trust. I agree that it does include a number of other factors, but in the SME space where the relationship is often between an IT professional and an Owner Manager (OM), trust is one of the most important factors.

I have held this view for a while and it often presents itself, in my head at least, during conversations where I am speaking to the OM about security, or staff access or similar sensitive matters. We often have conversations which involve a need to ensure staff cannot access ‘x’ or are limited in their viewing of ‘y’ and the OM feels reassured that I and the Abussi team are making sure all is secure.

What is never discussed is the fact that we (Abussi) have access to everything…………. not just the server, but all of its data, all email (past and present) all documents and much of the companies financial information. We take this responsibility very seriously and have processes in place (internally) to ensure access to this information is strictly monitored. The fact that the OM never raises this to me, or questions Abussi’s access to their data shows that they trust our approach.

Trust can also be a factor in the advice provided by an IT professional. An example can be found from a meeting I had this week with a prospective client in which they said “.. you know….. we can’t put our finger on anything specific, but we just get the feeling that something is not quite right..“. Its a very broad statement and a difficult one to isolate in terms of IT needs, but in essence they were expressing a feeling of ‘Lost Trust’ with the current IT provider. Once this is lost then its almost impossible to get back and the relationship is likely to fail………… and dealing with an outgoing IT provider to ensure business continuity is perhaps the subject of a future Blog !

In summary, make sure you ask some important questions about your IT provider. How long have they traded ? Can they provide references? Would it be possible to visit one of your existing clients to talk directly or as a minimum have the telephone number of your clients OM ?

In order to ensure your IT systems can be trusted to be reliable……….. make sure you trust your IT provider from the start.