When you sit down with an IT consultant, it’s for the purposes of creating or upgrading your company’s tech strategy. You’ll have a short-term or long-term plan with many elements that must be achieved, and your IT consultant will work with you until you check off every last one of your boxes.
Compare that to IT services. These services can be about creating a strategy, especially when you use IT consulting in the realm of IT services, but not all the time. For the most part, when you train your staff on a new software, that’s not really part of an overarching strategy. It’s mostly so your employees can continue to work productively.
That’s not to say IT services aren’t involved in IT consulting as part of your strategy, as that can most certainly happen. Data security measures and cloud computing are two areas where that’s especially true. Just as easily though, if you need helpdesk assistance because your computer’s Wi-Fi is down, that’s an IT service and not really considered part of a strategy. As you can see then, it can go both ways.
An IT Consulting Plan Lays the Groundwork, Whereas IT Services Bring the Plan to Life
IT consultants are trained in areas like technical language and advisory language, but they’re more business-minded than experts at tech. Areas of management and communications are where they mostly excel. Thus, while they can certainly help you plan what your IT strategy may look like and oversee the progress of your strategy, they cannot always carry out every last element of said strategy.
For example, through the guidance of your IT consultancy firm, you may realize that your company needs cloud computing because your computers are old and your hard drives are full. Or perhaps your consultant suggests data security after several breaches have affected your company within the past year.
Rather than always supplying those services themselves, your IT consultants may work with third parties, such as freelance IT services, to get you the services you need. If you used IT services for IT consultancy, they could both create a plan for you and carry out the aspects of that plan, as we mentioned.
IT Consultants May Be More Limited in What They Can Do
The above shows then how IT consultants cannot necessarily do every duty necessary to achieve your company’s tech advancement plan. This limit may be due to having more business than tech skills, which is the case for some (but not all) IT consultancy firms.
That said, while they can’t do it all, IT consultants can always point you in the direction of someone who can, and a trusted firm or individual at that.
IT Consultancy Is More About Building Relationships
The last area in which IT consultants and IT services differ is in their level of relationship building.
An IT consultant must establish a good working relationship with you, the client. This bond should be cordial and warm, as you need a positive rapport with your consultant. After all, they want to be the person you call when you have a tech question or concern, not a third-party IT services pro.
If the relationship between you and the consultant is rocky, then not only will you not want to reach out to them when you need help, but you’ll discount the help they try to give. As things continue to sour, you’ll wonder why you hired the consultant in the first place. You may just discontinue using their services.
That’s not to say that IT services don’t involve building professional relationships, as they can. If you have one trusted IT pro at your company or a small team you rely on, then you of course want to be able to trust in them with all your tech problems. You’ll also expect that they’ll be available when you most need them.
However, IT services don’t depend on building relationships to the extent that IT consultants do.
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