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Posted by Shawn Venkat on November 5, 2010

Why we are better than your IT team?

Is this how you feel after dealing with your internal IT team? Over the years and the numerous clients I have encountered, many if not all are unsatisfied with their IT support. From a communication, leadership, and innovation perspective they are lacking what clients need.

How do I know you make ask? My clients have told me this directly and I have experienced it first hand working as liaison for my clients. I have been in meetings where IT comes unprepared and is making excuses for the lack of progress on a project. They have tried to bamboozle me, but little do they know I used to code AND I have a B.S. in Computer Science so I know what you are trying to do!

Our clients at times have been given a mandate to use internal IT but when they are unable to be cost effective and meet deadlines what are they supposed to do? Bonuses, raises, etc are based on some of these deliverables yet IT doesn’t seem to get it? Why has this become the standard?

Outsourcing you say? Oh yes outsourcing. I have yet to see it work in large companies. I am not saying it can’t, I just haven’t seen it work yet. Bottom line yes, there are cost benefits but with poor communication, lack of understanding corporate culture and being distant from the company mentally and physically how do you effectively provide support? If timelines are longer and the end product is not meeting the business needs doesn’t that cost more?

We all know I could go on an on but I will get back to the topic.

Why are we better?
1. We partner with you to meet your needs
2. We treat you with respect
3. We deliver what we promise
4. We are accountable
5. We are knowledgeable

If you are tired of dealing with your IT team and want a change give us a call at 609.269.2320. Take look at our portfolio for some of the work we have done.

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Showing 5 Comments

  1. Nov 13, 2010 at 7:27 AM

    Shawn

    Wow no comments on this?

  2. Nov 13, 2010 at 9:42 AM

    Mark Simchock

    Hey Shawn, it goes without saying that I like LW. So please accept this as love. Nothing more, nothing less.

    With that said, I would like to point out that you might have just alienated half (or more?) or your potential prospects. For all we know, IT is also looking for someone or something to close the proverbial gap you’ve flogged. Contrary to popular belied, *no one* likes a struggling and/or failed project.

    If in most cases (of your target clients) IT holds the strings to the budget that finances LW involvement then it might make sense to develop a process and associated marketing effort that emphasizes win-win-win. That is, client, IT and LW all get a “W”. If LW’s fees are less than the cost incurred by not engaging LW and engaging LW also enhances ROI, then (obviously) there is going to be plenty of client *and* IT budget for LW, eh?

    As it is, the “damn our IT dept…” approach goes back as far as I can remember (and I’ve been around a bit longer than you :). Therefore such a message doesn’t really differentiate your brand, nor does such a cliche reflect innovation. So while your post here might be true in some regards, there might very well be a certain amount of, “Oh yeah, we’ve heard that before…”. (I say this because I have). I’m not certain of the context of your target so it’s hard to say what their reaction might be. I’m simply suggesting the idea of such a “tried & true” (read: cliche?) approach be revisited given this additional input.

    One might also interpret the message here to be that if the client *is* happy with their IT then there’s no need for LW. My point being, is LW’s value add just being a better version of a (bad) version of IT? For the record, my experience with LW is that you’re striving to be more than that, correct? Also, how is LW better than other similar outfits making the same claims?

    I hope I did not offend anyone. I’d like to mention that you did just ask for a comment :) Finally, if you & Co. want to sit down and talk marketing some time just give me a ring and we’ll make it happen.

  3. Nov 13, 2010 at 10:04 AM

    Shawn

    Mark great points you made! I will respond more throughly when I’m on a computer tomorrow.

    Good to hear from you!

  4. Nov 16, 2010 at 9:51 AM

    Pinaki Kathiari

    I’d like to call out an IT team that I think kicks serious ass. This is the Purdue Pharma out in Stamford CT.

    They are thorough, satisfy their business partners’ needs, and overall great people to work with. And I wouldn’t put that on my blog if I didn’t mean it.

    @Mark – you are right in that we might alienate our potential IT customers. However, if those IT customers fall in the category that Shawn is talking about, then we really don’t mind not having the business.

    I said it before and I’ll say it again – Successful websites come from successful team work. Nothing more, nothing less.

    Cheers

  5. Nov 17, 2010 at 12:03 PM

    Timothy Jaeger

    I don’t think the value-add is that Local Wisdom is better than a given IT department – but one clear distinction is that we know web better than most IT departments, and that includes meeting business / shareholder objectives, strategic goals, design excellence, and more. So the ‘damn our IT department’ complaint is really relevant because web gets ‘lumped’ with IT when it really shouldn’t (in many cases). This is one reason you would have Local Wisdom come in.

    IT should play a supporting role in a business. When IT departments want more power and autonomy, a common play is to ‘lock up’ the codebase, leave zero documentation, and use that as leverage to either:

    A) work less
    B) Decide which business objectives they want to work on (‘cherry picking’)
    c) Keep their jobs (i.e. ‘You need us, we don’t need you)

    Everyone wants to keep their jobs, but when it comes at the expense of businesses moving forward and not evolving, who wins? I’m not saying Local Wisdom should play the role of an augmented IT team, but rather that when you have deadlocks that become culturally ingrained in the corporate culture, how else do you move forward in a strong, agile way and engage beyond IT’s skillset and way-of-thinking?