MSP Documentation: No More Silos

How much time do you spend searching for information? For IT workers, it’s around 20%, and that same number has been thrown around for marketers as well.

So wasted time is a pain point for every business. And why is this? Well, think about where your information is located. If you even know, you’re one of the lucky ones, because in most organizations important information is locked in many silos.

At first it doesn’t matter

It all makes so much sense when your business is just starting. You have one or two people, and everything you need to know is stored in a few folders in Office or Google docs. Well, except your passwords. Those are on a Post-It stuck to your monitor. And your accounts payable stuff. That’s in the bottom drawer.

And all those business cards from that last conference? Those might still be in the outer pocket of your travel bag. At least you hope so, because you actually need to talk to that vendor you shook hands with but can’t remember the name of.

And then you grow

The business doesn’t get any more organized as you grow. The next thing you know, your information ends up in multiple different systems. All working knowledge of your biggest customer is in the account executive’s head, and the accounts payables are still in the same bottom drawer. While you’ve smartened up on the passwords, you suddenly realize that nobody knows where the warranty information on the busted photocopier is.

The information you need to run your business is still in silos. Departments don’t talk to each other, and even within a department it might not be clear where information lives. Your team spends far too much time chasing down the information they need to do their jobs.

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth documenting

A documentation system provides a centralized hub for your critical business information. At IT Glue, we practice what we preach. Each of our departments logs key processes, assets and documents in IT Glue. As an example, we have a process document for filing expenses. That way even someone who seldom files expenses can easily find and access this document, saving them a call to HR. Information that used to be locked up in departmental silos is now available in a central location.

Documentation makes onboarding and scaling up easier, too. The marketing department has everything documented from the writing style guide, to our processes for social media to process documentations for publishing different types of content. So when our small team becomes a big team, we can reduce training time, and all but eliminate the risk of releasing something inconsistent with our branding.

So whether you’re an MSP or do business with one, it’s time to start thinking about breaking down the silos in your business, and centralizing your documentation in a singular, organized, platform.