It’s easy to get lost in the wave of innovations and tech products, especially for SMBs. Striving to keep their operations up to date, these businesses often end up directly dealing with multiple vendors and service providers – an impressive feat, indeed, but not without its unseen costs. The culprit here is the dire need for robust vendor support, often underestimated or even overlooked.
Take a moment and think about the hierarchy in the tech industry. Like any other field, it’s a play of small fish and big fish, with the bigger ones generally monopolizing the attention and resources. SMBs, for the most part, fall into the ‘small fish’ category, making their voices harder to hear amidst the roars of the corporate giants.
This disparity can even seep into your dealings with providers of technological products. They might pledge to prioritize all needs and issues uniformly, but in practice, the big fish often swim to the front of the queue. So how do you, as an SMB, make yourself heard and get the support you need?
The solution lies in aligning with a larger advocate – a technology partner that can champion your cause.
This is where Lumitiv enters the picture, positioned in the unique landscape of Calgary’s thriving IT support sector. We believe in the power of technology partnerships and leverage this to support our clients. Our alliances with numerous brokerages enable us to bring to SMBs, tech solutions often reserved for bigger corporations due to restrictions like minimum purchase requirements or exclusive partner-only purchase abilities.
How does this work in practice? Imagine your small business grappling with email service issues from a major provider like Microsoft. Given their scale, your problem may seem minuscule, making it difficult to secure the immediate attention and support you require. But by having someone in your corner, you harness the weight of our broad partnerships, prompting an intervention on your behalf.
Recently, we helped an SMB that was experiencing phone issues ignored by their vendor. Despite not being involved in the original service agreements, our partnerships allowed us to nudge the provider, reminding them of the significant impact technology failure has on smaller businesses.
The result? The customer’s issues were resolved within 30 minutes.
While typical managed services providers may buy products and services, then resell to customers at a highly marked-up price, we adopt a different approach. We are staunch advocates for our clients, committed to providing right-fit solutions rather than pursuing hefty commissions.
Our core business revolves around offering an “insurance plan” for IT support services at a budget-friendly cost. This approach reflects our values and our firm commitment to support SMBs through economic uncertainties like inflation, increasing interest rates, and rising living costs. High markups on third party technology doesn’t align with this.
In essence, we’ve reshaped the traditional understanding of partnerships. Instead of a vendor-IT company alliance aimed at boosting revenues through product reselling, we’ve steered the focus back to where it should always be – the customer. We believe this approach is the right way forward, placing our clients’ needs first.
If you found this piece insightful, please consider sharing it with a colleague. In a forest of old-school technology providers, your support helps us stand tall so that we can level the IT playing field for everyone.