Haven’t read part one?  IT Guy to MSP: Why? Part 1.

Let’s quickly take a look at how most businesses are structured.

For the sake of simplicity, we’ll focus on an average small business.  In my experience, these guys have a tendancy to run around like a head without a chicken.  Not that they don’t know what they’re doing, but the feeling is somewhat panicced, and not at all like the calm, reserved, quiet sort of vibe you get in a well-organized medium or large corporation.

I beleive part of why a larger business tends to be more relaxed is because there’s a hurdle you have to get over in order to become big.  It has to do with organization.  Unless systems and processes are put into place, every situation, even if you’ve encountered it before, feels as though you may have to do this or do that, and you’re forced to come up with a solution.

This lends itself to panic as decisions are made on the fly.  Let me be clear – I’m not really sure why this happens, I’m just inclined to think this is why.  In small business, everyone wears many (or all!) hats.  One day you’re the IT guy, the next you’re running out there to meet clients, another day you’re selling or fixing something.. in a large corporation you’re given a title, a job description and perhaps a desk to sit at.  Hopefully you get good at your job because it’s well defined and you’ll do it day in and day out, and (in theory) you won’t do much else.

There’s nothing wrong with either model.  I’m of the oppinion that small businesses typically don’t acheive the zen-like state until they want to get big, and in doing so are forced to organize like crazy.  I think the zen-like state allows for more efficiency.

Let’s look at a really basic company org chart I threw up in about 2 minutes.

Basic company structure

It’s not based on any company in particular, but it represents what a young-ish company might look like.  It has a leader, an engineering team and graphics artist to produce something, a sales and marketing team to advertise the product, a controller to keep an eye on finances, a secretary to answer the phones and keep meeting notes, and a business development specialist to find new avenues to explore in order to increase revenue.  Pretty basic.  Oh, I forgot the IT guy.

To simplify it further: president runs company.  General manager tells him what he needs to know about production.  Biz dev improves company’s bottom line.  Controller watches expenditures and makes sure the bills can get paid.

I’m going to end the article here.  Notice how I put the IT guy as reporting to the general manager?  That’s because in most companies, when the IT infrastructure breaks, production can often grind to a halt.

It’s important to think of IT as being either central or at least supportive of the company’s function as a business.