Why should I use an outsourced IT provider? Many businesses may ask if they should hire an outsourced IT provider to manage their company's information technology. The answer is simple, to save time and money by hiring an expert to manage day to day operations and prevent problems. There are more details in how that actually applies to a business.
This is especially true for the legal cannabis industry, which has unique challenges and hefty regulations for growers, distributors, and dispensaries in the cannabis industry. Federal and State regulations requires very specific data to be kept in these operations and failure to mange that data may result in fines or even closures of a business, not to mention insurance rates.
We recently spoke with Steve Arndt, President of Cannabis Technology Partners, a Division of Silver Lining's Technology, and Greg Shenefelt, Help Desk Coordinator at Cannabis Technology Partners about why it would make sense for a company to engage an IT Services Provider, especially one in the legal cannabis industry. Below is part of the interview we conducted with them.
Why Should I Hire an IT Service Provider?
There's a lot of great reasons to use an outsource provider. Number one, it just lets you focus on all the things that you need to do to make your business successful without having to worry about IT day-to-day meltdowns or tasks, even when you do have a deep-vested knowledge in IT practices.
One could ask the question, why would you hire an outsource payroll provider or an outsource accounting provider. In either one of those cases, you're doing it number one to buy yourself time, but also, you're trying to hire an expert that can do it a lot faster and in theory, a lot cheaper than in-house. Again, time is money, so faster definitely helps. You want somebody that's there reacting to internet outages and things that are going to affect operations right away. So, having somebody on the hook that's taking care of those problems right away when who knows what you're doing, that's gold.
You should hire an outsource firm because these individuals are going to have specialized tools and expertise that you don't have access to in-house. And it's also really nice to know, hey, I have this critical thing happening, and there's somebody on the other end that's already responded to it. We've got the providers involved. We're getting the service restored, which, again, like Steve said, time is money, and that brings your money maker right back up.
I've done IT consulting for years and years and years. But what I've found great systems is really for an effective IT department, you need to have four different skill sets in play. A single person doesn't have the capacity to do and handle all of the things that an IT department itself needs to do. When you talk about doing it in-house or you have an IT background, chances are you're doing a chunk of that stuff. There's probably a whole bunch of stuff that you're not doing, maybe compliance, maybe security, who knows, applications, that a team, and especially an outsource team where you've got predictable costs, can handle for you, and quite frankly, supplement. It's not negative that you know how to do it. It's actually a much better team environment.
But I Am Knowledgeable in Information Technology, Why Outsource?
I've run across is just in whatever area you're in is you may have somebody as an expert, but it still doesn't mean you have all the time dedicated to it. Do you find a lot of companies that just don't have the bandwidth to be able to do this, and this helps offset some of those?
A lot of times, you don't know what you don't know. With a good, outsourced IT provider, they're going to fill the gaps and help educate you along the way. The minute you go through a couple of those iterations, you go, Gee, oh, my gosh, of course, I should have done that before.
Are All IT Service Providers the Same?
I definitely don't think all are the same. Part of it has to do with where did they come from, what's their orientation? A lot of what's called MSPs or IT service providers, grew out of the idea that there was a strong technical person, and they didn't like working for anybody else. So, they start their own company.
That’s great but they're very narrowly focused on the tech itself. Other firms, for instance, like ours, for instance have a more comprehensive approach. I have a background in CIO, and you think, Well, CIO is tech. No, it's really business. How does business work? And what do you do with the tech to operate effectively in business and at cost? Those themselves are two different, vastly different perspectives. And quite frankly, there are a number of others. Really, not all firms are the same.
You need to look for one that aligns with gaps that you have so that they can supplement those. Obviously, pricing is all across the board, so you need to really understand what the pricing is.
Pricing Differences:
It may seem like one company is more expensive than another, but perhaps they're offering security and compliance and other things on top of it or 24 by 7 support versus another one that you're getting bare bones, right? And you don't really know until something goes outside of those bounds and you have to pay more for it.
Some companies are only focused on the tech, and then they forget about the service aspect here, helping you alleviate pressures that you're feeling in your day-to-day environment or just keeping you ahead of those things. It's great to go to bed at night and not worry, hey, is my email secure or my PC is safe? And to have somebody just, again, get on the phone and have that human one-on-one connection and conversation with and it is not so tech driven.
Pro-Active Firms vs. Reactive Firms:
There are a lot of firms that are reactive for you, but most businesses, don't you want somebody that's proactive? Don't you want people that are preventing the security flaws from coming in rather than just reacting to them? You have got to do both. I get it, but there's a lot to be said for having a proactive firm as your partner.
How Does IT Management Affect the Legal Cannabis Industry?
There have been many folks that have posited the cannabis industry as the most regulated industry, even compared to drug companies and such or hospitals and things like that. From my experience, I've seen that. You've got, not even tobacco, you have to track the product, the tobacco product from when it comes out of the ground all the way through to when it's produced as a cigar or a cigarette, alcohol, the same thing. But with cannabis, we've got to track the product all the way through. You're regulated to do that. But not only that, every state's regulations are slightly different. You've got to not just know the general. You have to know Very specific, where are you operating? Every single one of the states mandates some surveillance of the product. So not only do you have to track it in terms of data points and what happens, you also have to show visual proof of what took place with the product itself all the way through your organization. Those two things are huge. And quite frankly, those are the two things that get Most of the cannabis organizations in trouble. I mean, in business, you can get in trouble for a lot of things.
From a technological perspective, you got to nail both data points and visual proof. Surveillance is the perfect example where the surveillance industry, as it's been for the last 20 years, really hasn't been positioned well to do that. The traditional surveillance provider is a reseller of equipment, an installer, and then they walk away, hands off, it's done. They also don't typically think of the network as a whole. I mean, yeah, their devices sit on the network, but if it's the network's fault, again, they throw up their hands. Having a full service provider that understands that and isn't just going to, well, I'm sorry, that's not our thing, but literally take ownership of the technology all the way through to this idea of making sure you're fully compliant and responding correctly when there's an outage or something else, that's a huge thing in cannabis and a requirement. Most people don't get that they get burned by fines or theft or something else. It's not a good lesson.
When we chose to start a Cannabis IT Services Company, again, it goes back to the strategic side and the big picture side of things, the business things. I love that and figuring that stuff out, but I'm also always about taking ownership. Number one, I don't expect our clients to love, like, or be good at technology. If they were, again, it goes back to the first question, why should you hire us? Well, yeah, I think there's valid reasons, but most of them, these aren't the strengths, and quite frankly, not their focus as well. For us to know what the compliance requirements are and to provide that information, again, that's value to our clients to understand the full life cycle. Cannabis is fascinating, even more so than alcohol and some other stuff, because quite frankly, now with infusion, in manufacturing. I mean, cannabis is in everything, and not just edibles and consumables, but health products. You've got rubs and you've got other things that the product is used for. It's like an ingredient like sugar, which ends up in everything all over. Only now you have to track it. You have to know where it's at, and every state's different
Final Thoughts:
Any business relationship where you're involving a partner, and again, legal, accounting, IT, whatever it is, construction, I think you want to look for a person or a team that owns the issue and is accountable to the issue, that doesn't shy away and start making excuses about this thing or the other. I want people that are responsible and accountable that work for me, whether they're internal, external vendors or anything like that, and that's going to help you be successful.
Man Thanks to Steve Arndt, and Greg Shenefelt for their information.
You can reach them at Cannabis Technology Partners - https://cannabistechnologypartners.com/
You can also hear the entire interview on the Podcast :
Small Business Talks Podcast