Tucker Powersports

Early in my career, I had a career coach who stressed ‘Assume Positive INTENT’, which sounds a bit of what some politician said, ‘Trust but verify’. 

Well, when it comes to being the IT leader, especially for a small, medium enterprise (SME), both sentiments ring true. 

Now in my third leadership role for an SME I rely a lot on my vendor partners. And after 1/3 of my small staff left within my first weeks due to relocation and resignations, the vendor partners were even more important to the firm's success, let alone to my success. 

For example, while we had individual recurring meetings for the outsourced DBA administration and another for the outsourced applications and another for outsourced offshore developers, we realized periodically including these teams in cross-functional meetings broke down misunderstandings while increasing productivity. In short, cross functional meetings became a ‘force multiplier’, especially when coordinating timing and responsibilities for database patches and storage enhancements (with their associated downtime impacts to end-users).

Just as important is having a defined escalation approach with current names and cell phone numbers.  And testing at least your escalation call tree, if not the end-to-end process, would let you rest a bit easier when (not if) that off hours call comes to you. 

One off hours call occurred early one Friday morning when some of the staff was either on summer PTO or WFH.  That’s was when our primary firewall at a west coast distribution center warehouse failed causing connectivity issues.  The managed service provider (MSP) uncovered the main firewall had ceased to provide DHCP to any downstream network devices.  These included the switches, access points, security and other devices that did not have an address.

The MSP had earlier forced a failover of the two firewalls and moved everything over to the standby unit. This restored network connectivity and other network services such as DHCP. However, it appeared intermittent problems persisted due to the old ‘primary’ unit still being connected to the network. Well, our company on-site west coast non-technical FTE had to completely disconnect the bad firewall appliance from the network. After doing so, all the problems subsided entirely.

  ​I cannot overstate the importance of building a trusting relationship with your vendor partners.   

But why re-invent the wheel? Many established frameworks from NIST, COBIT, CSA or MS-ISAC have given me a good starting point. And newer ones like MITRE ATT&CK framework are better than a blank canvas. Coupled with a through understanding of our vendor contracts, I’m better am to make informed decisions on best ‘next steps’.

In short, I cannot overstate the importance of building a trusting relationship with your vendor partners.  Of course, like any relationship (business or personal) there will be misunderstandings, unmet expectations, and likely reflection on why you are in this relationship at all. We’ve all been there and will be there time and time again.

However, like any relationship to be a ‘force multiplier’, to be better together as a team rather than individuals, alignment takes constant work. Cross-team meetings, recognized frameworks, and sometimes the trust that comes from working together under trying conditions that could negatively impact both you and your vendor partner.

But what other choice do you have but to work on your relationship(s) ?  What other choice do you have but to ensure ‘Teamwork Makes the Dream Work’?