[Gllug] starting in IT

[Andrew Back]

On (15:01 06/01/10), James Courtier-Dutton wrote:

> The "maintenance" method also has many advantages, because you then
> get to charge extra when the customer asks you to "change" something.
> When you "change" something, this is a new feature and therefore
> possibly a increase in the monthly "maintenance" cost.

I've never had the guts to go fully freelance, but if I ever did I'd likely
go for a similar approach. Having an ongoing formal relationship provides a
level of comfort to both parties. I have an ex-lawyer friend that provides
IT consultancy to small law firms, has numerous on his books, each pay a set
fee/month and get one or two days of work. Which might include things such
as working on their on-line strategy or an upgrade to some existing system.
Beyond which he has a negotiated rate with them for additional work. I think
such an approach is fairly common.

I would imagine, though, that you need to be careful with contracts and what
you commit to etc. Need to be realistic and any ambiguity could lead to
problems. 
 
> Another term used is "managed service". Here you manage their systems
> and web site and fix problems even before the customer notices.
> The way the "managed service" is measured is by SLAs (Service Level
> agreements). So, the customer pays for a certain amount of
> availabiltiy or uptime and if you meet that, you get paid, if you miss
> them, the customer gets "service credits" that result in you being
> paid less than normal.

This strikes me as riskier if you are just starting out, but perhaps more
attractive to both sides if you operate your own infrastructure, and can
both manage fewer configurations and sweat the assets, whilst potentially
providing a solution that is cheaper to the customer.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is all purely personal opinion, and that
of someone who has no freelance experience to talk of.

Cheers,

Andrew

-- 
Andrew Back
mailto:andrew at osmosoft.com
http://carrierdetect.com
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