Second Opinions Can Save You Money and Time

I realize that this seems like common sense, but you would be surprised how many organizations don’t get second opinions on major projects. We see it all the time. We get a phone call from an executive at a prospective client and they want us to come in to provide a second opinion on a project that their current IT consultant or internal IT staff has presented for approval. But that’s usually the third or fourth project in the last 12 months, and it’s the first one that an outside party is looking at. A lot of the time it is a case where a major project was implemented, then there was an add on due to “unforeseen circumstances” or “scope creep”, and then another. By the time the third add on rolls around the client is starting to wonder if it was a good idea to do the project in the first place.

You should always, without exception, get a second opinion on a major project. I define a major project as a project where one or both of the following conditions exist a) you are spending more money than you would be comfortable spending normally b) you are nervous about the impact it will have on the users in your organization. If you think about it you really have nothing to lose, for most projects it will take about four hours of your time and you can save yourself significant amounts of money and pain. Here’s why.

1. A company brought in to give a second opinion will happily do so for free; this could lead to new business for them. If they won’t do it for free find someone who will.
2. They’ll do all the work. All you have to do is meet with them once or twice and give them your current quote or project document without the pricing. Never give them the pricing that you already have, you want to see their price without any outside influence.
3. If you use an IT consulting firm having a lower price from a competitor gives you significant negotiating power. In fact I recommend telling them up front, before they provide the quote or project document, that you will be sending it to an outside party for a second opinion. This will keep them on their toes; they will keep the proposal lean if they believe that they are going to have to fight for the business.
4. If you have internal IT staff it will communicate to them that they better have their act together when they send you a proposal. It will come out very quickly if they haven’t done their homework regarding the technology or pricing.
5. You will often find that the company providing the second opinion recommends a different technology or implementation strategy. This will force internal IT staff or an outside firm to justify their recommendations; you can then make a choice based on the most logical argument.

One real world example that I encountered recently involved an IT consulting firm and a 150 person commercial real estate firm. The firm has no internal IT staff and uses an IT consulting firm for all their IT needs. The client was negotiating the monthly fee for their IT services at the end of their current contract and they asked us to provide a quote for the same services. Lloyd Group did an assessment of the network and quoted a price of $17,900 per month, more than $7,100 per month less than their current IT provider. The client then used this quote to negotiate a better price with their current provider since they were relatively happy with their services. In the end this client saved $6,000 per month simply by asking us to come in and provide a second opinion, and it took less than 4 hours of their time. Lloyd Group is now asked to quote all projects for this client and one day we are going to win their business.

A second example involves a 12 person sports services firm and a small IT consulting firm. The client’s consulting firm made a recommendation for a server upgrade project to address network slowness which the client signed off on. Unfortunately once the project was complete the network was slower than before the upgrade. There were 2 additional projects which the client signed off on in order to address the slowness, but neither of them fixed the issue. We were brought in to do an assessment and determine whether or not the work was done properly. We found that the problem actually resided in the configuration of the client’s network, not the hardware and infrastructure. We were hired to resolve the issue, which we did, and the client signed with us to provide all their IT services moving forward.