Guide · Selection
We are writing this article as a provider – you should know that as you read it. Even so, we have written it so that you can use it against us. Anyone who sets out criteria has to meet them. The criteria apply anywhere – if you are looking in Cologne and the Rhineland, you will also find at the end of this article what to look for in a local provider.
First the type, then the provider
Before you compare individual companies, it is worth taking a step back: which type suits your business at all? The three usual forms differ less in price than in what happens when something unusual or something big comes up.
A note on our own behalf: we are an IT systems house. If your business has eight workstations, everything is in Microsoft 365 and there is no server, we are probably not the cheapest answer – and we will say so in the initial consultation.
Verifiable, not claimed
Availability, experience and personal service appear on every website. The following seven points, by contrast, can be asked about in a conversation – and the answer is either concrete or evasive.
Do not ask about availability; ask who is on the line the third time you call. A front-line service that logs tickets is something different from someone who knows your environment. Both are legitimate – you just need to know what you are getting.
“We will get back to you quickly” is not a commitment. A reliable commitment states a time limit, differentiates by urgency and says when the clock starts: when the report is received, or at the start of business hours the next day.
The administrator password for your server, your firewall and your Microsoft account belongs to you. A provider who will not hand it over, or finds the question awkward, is building a dependency that you will pay dearly for later.
Ask for an example of system documentation, anonymised if need be. If there is none, the knowledge about your systems sits in one person's head. That is convenient until that person is on holiday, ill or has left.
No single person masters firewall, database, phone system and Microsoft 365 all at the same level. Ask who specialises in what, and who steps in when that person is unavailable.
Being close by is not an end in itself. It only matters when hardware needs replacing or a fault can only be seen in front of the device. Do the maths: how long does the journey take, and what does an hour of downtime cost you?
What actually happened last month? A provider who invoices monthly should also be able to show monthly which issues were reported, what was done and what state backup, updates and security are in.
Caution
None of them rules a provider out on its own. If three of them come together, you should get a second quote.
Before you sign
These points cost nothing in the negotiation and save a great deal later. A provider who agrees to them without hesitation has probably already arranged things this way anyway.
Approach
It should not take longer than that. If you compare for three months, in the end you are comparing memories.
Two pages are enough: number of workstations and servers, locations, business applications, what regularly goes wrong today and what an outage costs you per hour. Without that last figure, there is no sensible way to choose a response time.
More than three rarely leads to a better decision; fewer than two never leads to a comparison. Give them all the same two pages – otherwise you will get three quotes for three different things.
A reliable quote can only be made after someone has seen the environment. Anyone who quotes a fixed price without an assessment has built in a safety margin – or will ask for more later.
Compare the content, not the bottom line. The comparison sheet with twelve questions asks the same questions of every quote and makes the differences visible.
Talk to a client of similar size named by the provider – and do not ask them whether they are satisfied; ask about the last major incident. How it was handled tells you more than any reference list.
Switching
Worry about switching is the most common reason businesses stay with a provider they are unhappy with. In practice, switching is less dramatic than feared – provided the access credentials and the documentation are available.
The usual process: assessment and takeover of the documentation, setting up monitoring and remote support, handover of access, a limited period of parallel operation, and only then termination at the next possible date. Day-to-day operations do not stop in the meantime.
It only gets tricky in two places: if the previous provider does not cooperate, and if domains, certificates or cloud accounts are registered in their name instead of yours. Both can be resolved, but it takes time. So before you give notice, check who your domain is registered to.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, but with a sense of proportion. Vendor certifications show that someone has learned a product – not that they understand your environment. It is more telling to ask who in the company specialises in what, and how often knowledge is refreshed.
If you work in a regulated sector, it is the other way round: then evidence of ISO 27001 or TISAX can be a genuine exclusion criterion, because your own customers require it.
Three. With two you have no yardstick; from four onwards the quotes start to blur in your memory – and the effort for the assessments is out of all proportion.
Size protects against individual people being unavailable, not against poor service. The typical drawback of large providers for SMEs is anonymity: you are a small customer among many and speak to someone different with every incident.
The typical drawback of small providers is the lack of cover. The question is not “large or small” but which of the two risks your business would cope with less well.
Work it out instead of going by feel. For one month, note how often you waited for an answer and how long someone was unable to work as a result. Multiplied by an hourly rate, that gives you a figure you can set against the price difference.
The result is often clear – one way or the other.
Because we meet them. Our clients have their access credentials, their systems are documented, and the response times are in the contract. A client who stays because they technically cannot switch is the worse relationship for both sides.
Dipl.-Ing. Mohamed Khater
Dipl.-Ing. Mohamed Khater founded INFONET Computer GmbH in Cologne in 1992 and still runs it as its owner. The points in this article come from taking over environments that someone else looked after before – and from the cases in which the handover did not work.
Second opinion
Send it to us. We will tell you what is missing and what is unusual – even if the answer is: take it. Free of charge, and without it turning into a conversation about us.
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