Why I.T. Documentation is Essential for Small and Medium Businesses
As a small or medium-sized business, you likely rely on an IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) to support and maintain your infrastructure or to provide expertise for key applications. Regardless of how you engage with your service provider, it is crucial to require thorough documentation for all work undertaken. Proper documentation enables accurate knowledge transfer, enhances service quality, and contributes to significant cost savings.
Facilitating Knowledge Transfer
Documentation is essential for transferring knowledge between your team and external subject matter experts (SMEs). Without a well-documented network and server infrastructure, an SME might need to spend additional time in discovery, driving up project or service delivery costs. Moreover, documentation is invaluable when onboarding new staff, ensuring service continuity during personnel changes—whether within your business or the MSP.
For instance, during a major project led by Clark Lebarge to migrate email services from Microsoft Exchange to Exchange Online, outdated documentation provided by the customer indicated all Exchange servers were in one location with close connectivity to Domain Controllers. However, a recent security update had separated these services into more secure containers. This discrepancy, along with other issues, led to a project budget that exceeded expectations by 25%.
Ensuring Continuity Amid Staff Changes
Staff changes are inevitable. Whether adding new personnel, replacing retiring staff, or managing other transitions, these changes will happen. Without proper documentation, a simple service call can become a time-consuming task as new staff struggle to understand work completed years earlier by now-unavailable team members.
Improving Responsiveness and Resolution Times
Through documentation, an IT service provider can improve responsiveness and resolution times, minimizing business disruptions when issues arise. Detailed records of actions, reasoning, and resolutions ensure that recurring problems are addressed quickly and cost-effectively. Additionally, documentation can support self-help and self-service portals, empowering end users with the knowledge to resolve issues independently.
During a project to deploy virtual desktops running Windows 10 into Microsoft Azure for a medium-sized business, Clark worked with the customer’s service desk during the quality assurance (QA) phase. It was discovered that the default configuration of an application and its updates caused performance issues. By documenting the root cause and providing step-by-step resolution instructions, the customer service team was able to resolve future tickets in under five minutes.
Supporting Audits and Cost Management
Documentation is also vital for auditing and authorizing payments to your service provider. The IT provider should document who requested the service, who authorized it, when the request was made, when it was worked on, when it was resolved, and who performed the work. Without clear and concise documentation, it can be challenging to identify cost savings or prevent unnecessary expenses.
Good documentation benefits not just your business but also the IT service provider. It enhances customer satisfaction and enables the provider to serve more clients with the same resources, creating an economy of scale.
Requiring your MSP to maintain comprehensive documentation isn’t just beneficial for your business—it’s a win-win situation.
For example, while auditing a small business in the financial industry, Clark Lebarge identified that the existing provider was billing two hours per computer setup, regardless of the number of systems. While two hours per system might be reasonable individually, it is not when setting up ten systems simultaneously. Running all ten computers concurrently would naturally result in cost savings for the customer.
Mutual Benefits of Good Documentation
Good documentation benefits not just your business but also the IT service provider. It enhances customer satisfaction and enables the provider to serve more clients with the same resources, creating an economy of scale. Requiring your MSP to maintain comprehensive documentation isn’t just beneficial for your business—it’s a win-win situation.
