New Trend: The Lack of Proper Education in the IT Field
Companies have always tried to increase their profits through cutting costs.
Unfortunately when cost-reducing measures mean quality educated personnel will make less,
there tends to be fewer of them. This creates a demand for more, which in turn creates
an opportunity for certification mills to turn out poorly educated folks to the IT
field in short order.
What once was the “Wild West” has now become a standardized industry. With
governing bodies such as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and
International Organization for Standardization (ISO),
properly trained technicians and specialists are able to navigate various configuration
possibilities of hardware, software, and networking. Standards provided by these and
other agencies have allowed the rapid expansion of technology into our daily lives.
In a hurry to fill the technical support void of a rapidly expanding business, companies
seek to hire as many people as they think are needed to address any short falls.
Managed Service Providers (MSP), whose primary business model is to provide other
organizations with large scale outsourced technical support solutions, are especially
susceptible to this. In the course of any hiring process, it is often difficult to fully
gauge ones experience without some form of testing. While large organizations may use
some form of written or verbal exam, many smaller companies may not have the personnel
with knowledge to administer such tests.
Based upon the needs of the industry to qualify technical personnel, certification
authorities such as CompTIA have risen to provide
standards based exams that can prove a candidates knowledge. Large-scale
industry leaders such as Microsoft,
Cisco, and
Amazon who create new generally accepted
standards and trends also create their own exams to certify the value of a candidate.
There is however a hidden metric which an exam cannot measure. While through diligent
study and persistence one may pass a certification, this quality is only really attained
through experience. It is observable in day-to-day operations, where someone makes something
seem effortless. When you see it, you will recognize it. This metric can really only be
described as an “IT” factor. It is very much a sense a person who has made Information
Technology their life has as much as anyone can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch. This person
is usually only found in a company after being hired, and when found, they are a treasure that
should be retained.
Unfortunately, a trend, which has now taken hold in the IT field, is that of certification mills.
These are schools that “guarantee a successful IT career online a few days a week”. Nothing
can be further from the truth. Not to over step into another industry that has previously
experienced this trend, but ask yourself, if you were sick and in the hospital, which person
would you want looking after you…a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN) with 18 months of education
or a Registered Nurse with 4 years of education?
There are companies, especially MSPs, which spend more time and money by hiring low skilled labor
who cannot answer basic computer questions at level 1 and have to escalate to level 2 and higher.
This causes delays in getting a resolution, frustrations for the customer who is waiting for
the resolution, and a general loss of productivity. These trends hurt industries, and people.
Case in point…Boeing with their Max 737.
Boeing had hired low wage programmers to write the code for many critical systems.
We all know how that turned out. Hopefully we can one day return to a level
of quality that generates the high paying jobs in the IT field, and others.
Managed Service Providers: What are you getting into?
One of the most highly competitive fields in Information Technology is that of the Managed Service Providers. These are folks whose business model is to provide you with a superior outsourced IT platform to reduce or eliminate your in-house IT footprint. However, is this really an ideal stand-alone solution or is there more to it?
They do not know your business:
One of the key benefits of an in-house IT representative is that they learn your business. Many MSPs promise that they will learn your business, but never really do; they have many other clients their “account managers” focus on as part of their core business model. This is to be expected.
In-house IT costs can skyrocket from a capital expense perspective. If your business is not IT-centric, CapEx can rob resources, which can otherwise be devoted to your core business. Managed Service Providers are there to offer a solution to the IT conundrum of CapEx.
MSPs fall into the category of Operational Expenses (OpEx), which provides other values outside of the scope of this article (refer to a tax accountant about the difference between Capital Expense and Operational Expense). This article makes no assumptions regarding cost/benefit analysis.
What they do not tell you:
The world of IT is highly complex and intricate. Business contracts are no different. When the two meet, it takes an army of IT/Lawyers to even attempt to figure it all out. Some of the items that may not come up in MSP sales pitches are:
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Do they allow you as an owner/stakeholder “admin” access?
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“Admin” access in IT speak is an “Administrator” or “Domain Admin” account. This account is the ultimate authority of the permissions system within a computer network.
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A critical element often overlooked is, “How does one really own their data if they are not the ultimate authority of it?”
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The “Admin” account(s) is/are usually delegated among one or more internal company representatives of a high level such as IT and/or HR personnel and owners.
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Do they have third party technical support reviews?
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Third Party reviews of a MSP allow you the client to gauge the performance of the service, which you are paying for. Many MSPs will try to sell their product using numbers gathered in-house which either falsely boost their performance or reflect it under ideal conditions. These metrics include, support ticket response time, phone hold time, number of escalations and amount of time until escalation, etc…
What kind of commitment are you getting into?
When you go the MSP route, generally you should have some idea of what that entails. If you do not, be advised that this is usually a long-term engagement of three or more years by nature. The reason for this is due to the volume of data, usually large, which will be managed; the volume of users, also sizeable, who will need all of their technical problems responded to in a timely fashion.
What you actually get:
So what does all this mean? Missing pieces! However, that is an unfair summation. Many MSPs out there really do try to provide a complete package. This author has yet to meet one as comprehensive as a quality in-house IT staff does. Usually the best outsourced package combines a company hired, quality “IT Generalist” to couple with a Managed Service Provider, where your in-house personnel represents the company as your trusted confidant to interface with the qualified MSP selected.
Hopefully this article provides you a basic roadmap to a possible IT solution.