What should a builder ask before choosing an IT provider?

Three beyond the usual: whether they have supported a business where most people are never at a desk, what they would do about your estimating system, and how they handle support for someone on a site with poor signal. The generic questions matter; these separate providers for a builder.

The estimating question is the most revealing single thing you can ask. Describe the system, however old and awkward, and listen. A useful answer involves understanding what it does for the business, taking a recoverable image immediately, getting it off fragile hardware, and planning replacement rather than demanding it. A dismissive answer about it needing to be upgraded tells you the provider is thinking about office laptops rather than about the thing you use to price work.

Then field support, which is a genuinely different discipline. Ask what happens when someone is on a site with one bar of signal and their tablet will not sync, because that is a weekly occurrence rather than an edge case. Good answers involve devices being managed and diagnosable remotely, someone answering the phone quickly, and an honest acknowledgement that some problems need the device brought back rather than pretending everything is fixable remotely.

Two more worth asking. What is included monthly against what is billed separately, since project work billed hourly on top of a managed fee is where budgets surprise businesses in this industry. And who owns your tenant, your domain and your documentation, because that determines how difficult leaving would be. If you would like to ask us those questions, call 1800 456 567.