The question came over the phone: could I take over their entire IT? I was already looking after the company’s Microsoft 365 environment at the time. Accounts, permissions, licenses, the things that pile up in daily work.
Yes would have been the easy answer. First I wanted to know what I would be saying yes to.
What responsibility does the business need?
A common model looks like this: a monthly base fee, whether anything happens or not. Work billed by the hour. A ticket for every request. And a service level that sets how fast someone responds. The base fee pays for standby.
For some businesses, that is exactly right, in the cloud too. If you work around the clock or lose money the moment something goes down, you need paid standby.
For many small teams, the day looks different. A new hire needs an account. A laptop needs replacing. A shared folder has the wrong permissions. Many months, almost nothing happens. Then everything comes at once. Most of these jobs are small, clear and easy to describe up front. Individual jobs do not need constant standby. Ongoing responsibility, on the other hand, is a service in its own right, and it is worth paying for. What matters is knowing what you are paying for.
What I built differently
You pay for work or for responsibility. On demand, there is no base fee. You pay for the jobs you confirm, and each one has its price before I start. If the scope isn’t clear yet, we agree on a limit, and it is never quietly exceeded. If you want to hand over an area for good, Microsoft 365 for example, or the whole operation, you pay a monthly fee for it, in quiet months too. Then you are buying responsibility that someone actually carries. That gives three arrangements: on demand, managed areas and full service.
Every suitable task has three routes. “Handle it.” “Show us how.” “Build us a guide.” A good guide helps you handle a recurring task yourself. With Flex, you pay for that independence: the guide has a fixed price and is yours to keep. When a task keeps coming back, I suggest this route myself and tell you what it will save.
Costs become visible. Everyday work runs through a credit balance. Not to keep it as full as possible, but so that not every small job turns into its own invoice. Completed work is deducted once. You can always see what was done and what it cost. Over time, you get a clear picture of what looking after your IT costs. Month by month. Sometimes more, sometimes almost nothing. That is why it is called Flex.
The balance does not expire. If you prefer to pay by invoice, you can. And if you leave, you get the rest back.
A first response is not a fix
Which leaves the question that always comes up with IT support: what if something is on fire?
A classic service level might promise that someone responds within four hours. That sounds like security. All it means is that someone gets in touch. Not that things work again afterwards. First contact and resolution are two different things. Put both in one line and what you mostly buy is a good feeling.
I keep it simpler. If something comes up, email or call. If it is critical, call. Then it takes priority, and I stay on it. If I am traveling, you know in advance. And in an emergency, nobody waits for a balance: we agree briefly on what I will do, then I start. It is billed afterwards. Anything a monthly fee already covers costs nothing extra.
If a business genuinely needs fixed response times or around-the-clock coverage, that is organized on purpose: with backup coverage, in writing, and at a price that fits. Not as a promise nobody can keep when it counts.
What stays with you
Accounts, licenses, data and backups belong to you. So do the guides. Later on, you can hand over more, do more yourself, or move your support to someone else. That is not the fine print. That is the point.
Flex is my answer to that phone call. First we work out what responsibility your IT really needs. Then you know what you are paying for.
Price before work. Only promises I can keep.