By Daniel Shone
Most SMEs assume their IT provider is looking after everything. The reality is that many are only just keeping the lights on.
Daniel Shone, founder of award-winning Manchester-based managed service provider Apex Computing, has spent over two decades helping SMEs get more from their technology. In this piece, he makes the case that too many IT providers are operating reactively rather than strategically and that the businesses paying for their services are the ones left exposed as a result.
Your IT Provider Should Be Telling You This, But Probably Isn’t
Outsourcing IT is supposed to be easy, freeing SMEs from the stress and complexity of the DIY approach. That’s the entire point of the exercise. A trusted provider manages everything — systems, fixes, upgrades — and offers guidance to keep the company’s tech functioning and the business moving forward. That’s the deal that most SMEs think they’re signing up for. But the reality is often slightly different, with providers doing the bare minimum required to keep the contract ticking over, and not a great deal more.
When you rely on technology for almost every aspect of your company’s operations — from communication and data management to security and customer experience — the bare minimum simply isn’t enough. Your business needs proactive tech guidance, planning, and ongoing support to ensure that your technology evolves in line with your business as it grows. But many IT providers are failing to live up to their side of the bargain. And ultimately, it’s up to you to hold them to account.
The conversations your business should be having with its tech partners
Future-proofing
Technology decisions should never happen in isolation. Your IT partner should always have a clear understanding of your plans for the business, as well as your current infrastructure, because they need to be ready to help you achieve your goals — whether that’s expanding into new markets, scaling headcount, or adopting hybrid working. If your provider isn’t already discussing how your systems will support that shift, you need to be the one to open the conversation. It shouldn’t fall to you, but if it does, don’t wait.
Tech support shouldn’t just be about filing support desk tickets. Its role is strategic as much as anything else. So, rather than simply keeping your systems running as they are now, your IT partners should be looking at how to remove your bottlenecks, which processes you could automate, and what systems you will outgrow in the next three years. Actively planning how to help your business thrive, rather than just survive.
Hybrid infrastructure
A lot of SMEs find themselves drawn to cloud and SaaS software because it’s flexible and requires low upfront costs. And that’s entirely understandable because in-house tech can be expensive, and hybrid systems can quickly become complicated to manage. But relying solely on cloud computing often means compromise somewhere along the line. Your IT partner should be making those compromises unnecessary.
The most effective tech environments are usually hybrid, where businesses keep their critical work in-house and use cloud-based collaboration platforms, backup systems, and scalable applications alongside it. It strikes that perfect balance of cost, performance, and flexibility. But yes, it can be complex to manage day to day, leading to data siloes, security issues, and tech sprawl. A proactive IT partner should be simplifying that architecture and rationalising it over time, not allowing it to grow unchecked. So, what’s the point in having an IT partner if they can’t prevent that from happening?
Managing the cloud
That said, cloud services are invaluable, especially for smaller businesses working with limited internal resource. But the challenge of cloud sprawl shouldn’t be underestimated. Over time, most businesses accumulate platforms and subscriptions, and without regular oversight, it’s easy for unnecessary costs and unexpected security risks to creep in unnoticed. This is something that your tech partners should be actively managing, auditing usage and redundant services on a regular basis to protect the business. Left unchecked, it becomes both a financial drain and a genuine liability.
AI readiness
Most of the UK’s SMEs are already using AI in some form. But most of them also weren’t properly ready for a successful transition when they began, because buying the tools is always the easy part. For AI adoption to bring any real value, you have to implement an infrastructure that can support it, delivering clean, structured data, strong security policies and systems, and enough training to ensure that your employees understand how AI-generated outputs should be reviewed and validated. And your IT provider should be on top of all of that, guiding you through everything from readiness assessments to ongoing governance, long before they start selling you specific solutions. If they’re leading with the product rather than the foundations, that tells you something.
The difference between an IT supplier and a true partner is that one reacts to problems, the other helps prevent them. SMEs should be able to rely on their IT providers for honest advice about infrastructure, security, emerging technology, and every other related subject. Those conversations should already be happening. And if they’re not, it’s probably time that you found another provider to work with.
Daniel Shone
