A Time to Lead

President Brian Delaney was waiting on his head of Marketing, Roger Philips. Roger had been trying to show him a video online, but was having trouble getting his internet browser to work.

Brian wasn’t surprised with the delay. This sort of thing was happening more commonly these days.

When he began working for the company in 2008, it had quickly become apparent how little any of the senior employees actually knew about technology. With the company’s move to the cloud in 2011, he realized a change needed to be made with how they managed their IT. Even Brian was starting to feel technologically illiterate. He simply didn’t have the experience to make informed purchase decisions on new technologies.

Since 2002, they had outsourced their IT to Quartet who played primarily a support role. When management was interested in a new product or service, they would request information from Quartet and then make a decision. While this style of management worked well in the past, Brian did not believe it was practical for the future. Instead, he saw the rapid development of new technologies as a way of building their relationship with Quartet.

Brian gave their account rep at Quartet a call to talk about the new role he had slated for them.

“We originally hired you to support our IT infrastructure. But now, it’s gone way beyond that. We need you to lead.”

The Quartet rep asked Brian to elaborate on the idea.

“We simply don’t know enough about our IT to make the decisions ourselves,” he continued, “You on the other hand have the skills to help us, and the know-how to make things happen.”

He wanted Quartet to have an active role in all IT decision making; not only providing what was asked, but to recognize what was needed and make it happen. It would require a much deeper connection between their businesses, but Brian was fine with that. Quartet had earned their trust over ten years of service and he was sure they would perform just as well in their new capacity.

The account rep met up with Brian the following week to discuss some new changes. After hearing the rep’s first suggestion, he knew he had made the right decision.

“Why don’t we start with some training on the technologies you currently use? We better make sure they know how to use what you already own.”

“Probably a good idea,” responded Brian.