Channel Tech Center

Ki Mae Heussner of ABC News is running an interesting article about the “Top 7 Tech Disasters of the Decade”. Although the article is aimed at the consumer crowd, is it any surprise that all 7 disasters originated from the Channel side?

Of the 7 that Ki listed, 4 were Data Storage issues (cloud related of course), 2 were infrastructure and 1 was hardware supply chain based. This really has to make a manufacturer or service company wonder – who are my vendors and what safe guards do they have in place against catastrophes?

Speaking from my own experiences, I can say that I’ve hired vendors to handle many of my companies sensitive customer records like credit card processing, accounting, and marketing activities, with only reviewing their competitive bids, public information and, references from existing or past companies. Shockingly enough I’ve only gotten the real “dirt” on the vendor from past clients.

In one way or another we all outsource our business. Some things are forced upon us (like electricity), some are cost benefited (like your out-of-the-country development team), and others are out-right easier (like your Go-Daddy website kit for your corporate website – yes we know you have one!). Question is, did you actually read that service level agreement and/or terms of service or did you take it with a grain of salt? Odds are, they are protected but you aren’t.

Most likely your next outsourcing deal will be a Software as a Service company like PeopleSoft, so below I’ve listed 3 must reads that may help you reluctant managers in your next SaaS solution.