Experiences w/ Computer Service Contracting Entities?

dlur asks: "In an attempt to bring more revenue into my company's pockets (and then eventually mine), I've been trying to find more contract work. I've found quite a bit of stuff, and we've been an HP ASP for some time now, but I'm wondering what all you readers do for contracted service work? There's quite a few companies to contract with including Panda TPM, BancTec, PC SOS, Barrister, and many more. Which companies have you had the highest call volume come into you from? Which had the easiest time filling out their vast amounts of paper trails, or lack thereof? Which companies have you generally had the best experience working with? Are there any other outlets similar to these service contracts and warranty claim work for the big companies (Dell, HP/Compaq, IBM) that you're aware of that might be useful to the readers?"

Comments

My experience

[Mensa Babe]

For at least six years, I have been working exclusively as a consultant, but I generally don't use any people or companies between myself and someone, whom I work for (except maybe Western Union). I hate bureaucracy. I send them my code, they send me their money. That's it. Anything more is unnecessarily suboptimal in my opinion. But your milage might vary. It's all about finding a solution which is best for your specific needs. There is no universal solution for everyone.

Re:My experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything more is unnecessarily suboptimal in my opinion.

How would you like to come work for the Department of Redundancy Department?

It's all about finding a solution which is best for your specific needs. There is no universal solution for everyone.

Thank you, mistress of the obvious.

Re:My experience

[uradu]

> Thank you, mistress of the obvious.

Then again, (s)he's only a member of Mensa.

Re:YOU FAILED IT

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure did. *waits so he can press reply*

Ping!

[Troll Sonar]

Ping!

Meep!

[Anonymous Coward]

Meep!

Re:Meep!

[JumpSuit Boy]

quack

Re:Meep!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pimp?

Speaking for myself

[squiggleslash]

My personal opinion?

Don't.

Look, at first glance such schemes offer ways to simply cashflow issues, in the management context, and defer technical decisions to a known quantity, from a technical point of view. But looking at the wider picture, you're pretty much putting your testicles into a vice with someone who really has little reason to concern themselves with your needs holding the vice handle.

It reminds me of the old joke about the Fortran programmer and the saloon. A Fortran programmer walks into a bar. He sits down at the counter, slaps a dollar onto the bar, and says "I'll have a whisky". The bartender ignores him. The programmer gets a little confused as to why he's being ignored, and he says again "Gimme a whisky". The barman still ignores him. Finally, the programmer feels insulted. He slaps the bar and yells at the tender "Hey, you, a whisky!". Whereupon the bartender pulls out a gun from underneath the counter and shoots the programmer in the leg. The programmer runs out yelping and screaming.

A few years later, the same Fortran programmer enters the same bar. He has a magazine of rounds hanging from one shoulder, cowboy boots, chaps, a stetson, and a neckscalf. He swaggers up to the bar, sits down, and signals to the bar tender.

"Do I know you?" asks the bartender. "WRITE (100,*) "I'M A LOOKIN FOR THE", GENERICPERSON(1:3), "WHO SHOT MY", FATHERFOOTPUN(1:2)" responds the Fortran programmer.

The moral of the story? If you go about outsourcing your computer service contracting, you're likely to shoot yourself in the ENDOFLEG(1:4)

Re:Speaking for myself

[Anonymous Coward]

In English please...we don't speak Fortran.

Re:Speaking for myself

[Anonymous Coward]

The joke's kind of funnier when it's told in COBOL.

Re:Speaking for myself

[Spoing]

My personal opinion?

Don't.

Look, at first glance such schemes offer ways to simply cashflow issues, in the management context, and defer technical decisions to a known quantity, from a technical point of view. But looking at the wider picture, you're pretty much putting your testicles into a vice with someone who really has little reason to concern themselves with your needs holding the vice handle.

I didn't see where the original question asked about purchasing more of a contracting company's services. When I first read it, it looked like the question was how to find more contracting work (since they already do some contracting work).

Contractors -- and hiring more employees -- serves a purpose. Personally -- {BSEG} -- I neither have enough time in the day or knowledge to be capable of doing everything. Anyone who says they can do it all don't have much to do, are lying, or just inexperienced.

If you can maintain a network, plus design-document-&-code new software, maintain the old stuff, go to management meetings for half the day, *and* have time to learn new skills...well, you're not spending your work hours on your core job (and you probably spend your non-work hours on excessive amounts of work). You probably are spread so thin that you need help...and even if you could figure it all out, why bother when someone else can do a better job?

That said, if you hire anyone -- under a contract or as an employee -- and nobody on your side is interested in exactly how the new hire or contracor get things done...well, don't expect precision.

As someone who has exclusively worked on contracts for the past 10 years, on both sides of the contract, the good ones suceed because *both* sides are honest, interested, and professional.

Those expecting an Us-vs-Them relationship tend to get it. Those who play the blame game encourage finger pointing -- and promoting the worst kind of back stabbers. Those who won't follow through and cleanly hold the other teams accountable -- and suck it up when at fault -- also have problems.

That said, often bad money decisions made early on can impact the whole project and force people into doing bad things. (Example: The project I'm currently on has no single requirements document and the end customer doesn't care. Instead, the customer pokes through trashcans for potential security breaches instead of checking to see if the new applications and servers work as they should. No focus, lots of mistrust, and the sad thing is that if things were planned a little differently early on these issues would be largely eliminated. (Yes, checking trashcans and other physical areas for security breaches is a good idea on many projects.))

What exactly are you trying to do ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read your post three times and I still don't know if you are trying to find contractors to do work for you company, or if you are trying to find work as a contractor doing such work for other companies.

Re:What exactly are you trying to do ?

[dlur]

Although it would seem that nobody even bothered to read the article before posting (as usual) due to the only replies so far relating to programming contract work, of which there is nothing even mentioned in the article, this is the jist of what I want to know.

I fix computers. My company fixes and sells computers. We fix our own computers under warranty. We fix HP's computers under warranty. It costs us money to fix our own computers under warranty. It costs HP money to have us fix their computers and printers under warranty and it, in turn, comes to us as income for fixing what they sold. We'd like to fix more computers and printers and stuff under warranty that other companies have sold to customers that did not buy computers or printers from us. We'd also like to have oppurtunites to do service and networking contract work for large companies and government offices that have a contract with some large company. The question is, which companies other than those listed in the article above, would you go about using to achieve these goals?

Note that this article has absolutely nothing to do with writing code, programming, FORTRAN, fuzzy brown squirrels, or beach balls. It has to do with doing warranty work for PC vendors and getting paid to do it.

Re:What exactly are you trying to do ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the AC. Even after reading your last post, I still only vaguely understand what you want to do.

How about something like this?

"Our company has contracts with companies like HP to fix computers that HP customers bought. We'd like to find more of these contracts. How would we go about doing that?"

Then go into a bit more detail about why you want what you want. Keep it succinct, though, and leave out the filler.

You definitely need to learn how to get your point across more clearly in writing.

Re:What exactly are you trying to do ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am the AC poster who started this sub-thread.

I now understand what you want to do. You don't fix "HP's computers", you fix computer made by HP but owned by the third party and HP is the one who pays you because the computer's were under warrantee. Is that right ?

This is really a marketing problem isn't it ? Or maybe it's a matter of locating your potential customers so you can start thinking about how to market to them.

As someone who does a little moonlighting fixing computers and setting stuff up for various small businesses, I can see your problem. I have several guys who need me for $300 worth of work every six months or a year. I'd like to double my number of customers, but I only came by those customers through the weirdest flukes of happenstance, and I have no idea how to find more. My current customers are thoughtful and think ahead and are rarely caught against a deadline and never fail to pay; I think if I advertised my services I'd get a very different set of guys.

Have you considered getting out of warranty related repairs and more into general computer repair ? You tend to get smaller, thiftier type businesses when you are repairing white boxes, and it becomes more important to let them know costs ahead of time and be efficient.

I have two suggestions: go to main street type computer stores, and offer your services to them for when a sudden rush of work has overloaded their regular tech guys; and advertise where people going to Fry's, Best Buy, and similar stores would see you. Some people put up those small plastic signs advertising services on the roadside close to big computer outlets; that type of advertising has become so obnoxious in some areas it will drive away as many customers as you get. If your company has a vehicle make sure the name and phone number are on the side whenever you go to such areas, and if you don't have a vehicle, get those magnetic stick-on signs and make all employees have them on their cars all the time.

Re:What exactly are you trying to do ?

[dlur]

I re-read my original post 10 times for clarity and also had my girlfriend, who knows nothing of computers, read it and she understood it. I am sorry that my point was lost on you.

No, I do not fix "HP's computers". We, as a company, fix computers sold by HP/Compaq to 3rd parties (businesses or home users) that fail under warranty. We also sell our own "white box" brand of computers. We repair our own "white box" computers both under warranty, and out of warranty. We fix ANYONE's brand of computer out of warranty. We, as a company, also do contracted computer warranty repair services for other manufacturers through warranty companies such as Panda TPM, Nexicore, PC SOS, Technical Alliance Corp, GSN Barrister, and Unisys. These companies pay us to fix computers for their customers, mostly under warranty. This concludes what we, as a small business, already do.

Note that as I stated above, we already do do general computer/printer repair. We've ALWAYS done this. We will continue to do this. Note that we do NOT do software design/development, software programming, web design, web programming or anything else that relates to anything software other than fixing problems in existing software.

Also note that we ARE the local main street type computer store. We are not a Fry's, nor a Best Buy, nor are there any Fry's or Best Buys within 100 miles of here.

You idea of having signs painted or adherred to each employee's vehicle is a good one, but my original question has still not been answered. What other companies other than Panda TPM, Barrister, Nexicore, PC SOS, Technical Alliance Corp, and VentureTech Network are available out there for people or companies like us to do work for?

Have been doning it

[floydman]

I am working as a consultant for the past 6 months for a large firm, through a contracting company(like your's), well, to me as a consultant, its good money, and good experience(ofcorse the exoerience part depends on the project).
One draw back though is, consider the following scenario:

I am here in this company as a consultant, working on code that was made by another conultant before me(and left), the code is not understandable, no one in the firm understands or knows shit about it, and you as a contracting company should solve the problem, and me as a consultant in the firm by your contracting company should magically SAVE BOTH YOUR ASSES, SO BOTH OF YOU FUCK OFFF......:)

Hope you know what i mean now..

/*True story, based on the life of a geek under fire*/

Who to do contract work for

[Themiddleman]

You'll find many national service companies to do contract work for but, you won't want to do business with everyone. For example, beware of a company out of California called Tech-America. I have known the people there in one way or another for about 4 years now. Up until about a year ago, their company name was 4EVRNEW. They would accept work from NSC' and find local technicians to do the work but, they would never pay the technicians. They did this for about 3 or 4 years, racking up allot of debt and ticking off allot of local technicians until they changed their name to Tech-America this past year. So far, I've been watching them and it looks like their going to start it all over again. Solicit techs, get them to do work , not pay them and then change their company name to get away with it again. Other companies like C-Pass / Metro Atlantic just have a bad problem with paying on time. I've heard from several different techs across the U.S. that they are owed money over 100 days.