Third-party integration can be problematic

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In IT the promise of third-parties is that they can do it better. It can be true. Often however it just adds unneeded complexity.

For example, I once worked with a company that used an inferior product for its MDM that was third-party. In fact many companies are moving away from that product to Intune. Intune isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t have those particular issues.

I immediately knew the product based on the rough onboarding experience. For non-IT people it is not a great feeling. In fact, they had to include a 10 pages guidebook for onboarding and when I had a problem the line had 3 people while I was waiting in the que for help. I fixed the problem while waiting and that isn’t a great onboarding experience.

Part of having a great employee experience is having felt your time and energy is valuable. In fact some research shows that 80% of a employees opinion is formed by the onboarding experience. Most companies I have joined it has been a terrible onboarding experience. Companies rarely consider the cost of wasted time and frustration.

Let me be clear. I am not a MS fanboy and think Intune is the best. For certain needs it may be. For other needs JAMF may be. It really depends on the use case. People like to oversimplify life. It requires asking some questions and getting down to what is really important.

Third-party stuff can be great, but it usually adds complexity and cost. Is that worth it and you need to continually evaluate that as other vendors products improve.

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