You’ve invested significant time and money into an IT vendor expecting professional service and clear accountability. Yet when an IT issue arises—a system goes down, a security alert fires, or a critical application fails—suddenly no one owns the problem.
Your IT vendor blames the software provider, the software provider blames the cloud host, the cloud host blames the network vendor and the network vendor blames the end user. Meanwhile, your business loses productivity, revenue and customer trust.
If your IT vendor keeps passing the buck, it’s not only frustrating — it’s a sign of a deeper strategic issue. Here’s what’s really happening and what leaders should do next to stop the finger-pointing.
Read: 5 Tips on How to Hold Your IT Provider Accountable
The real cost of “not our problem”
When IT accountability breaks down, the consequences reach far beyond inconvenience:
– Downtime lasts longer because no one is coordinating resolution.
– Security risks rise as gaps between vendors go unmanaged.
– Internal teams lose confidence in IT’s ability to support the business.
– Executives are pulled into firefighting instead of strategic leadership.
Most importantly, finger-pointing erodes trust, and trust is foundational to an effective IT strategy.
Why vendors pass the buck
This behavior is rarely accidental. It usually stems from one or more structural problems:
– Transactional engagement instead of strategic partnership: Many providers are scoped to support specific systems, not to own outcomes. If a problem falls outside that narrow scope, they disengage.
– No single point of accountability: With infrastructure, security, cloud and applications handled by different vendors, coordination becomes optional rather than mandatory.
– Lack of architectural oversight: Without someone looking at the whole environment, vendors optimize their piece even when it hurts the bigger picture.
– Wrong incentives: If success metrics focus on tickets closed rather than business continuity and growth, you’ll get what’s measured, not what’s needed.
What to do when the blaming starts
If this sounds familiar, take these practical steps to break the cycle:
1. Document everything. Keep a written record of issues, timelines and commitments. Save emails, tickets and meeting notes, and track who said what and when. Documentation isn’t adversarial — it creates clarity. A clear timeline or specific promise makes it harder for vendors to deflect responsibility.
2. Revisit the contract. SLAs often contain response and resolution timelines, escalation procedures and penalties for non-performance. Reviewing the agreement regularly helps you identify gaps and use the contract when vendors dodge responsibility. It also clarifies whether a problem is a performance failure or simply a scope mismatch.
3. Bring all parties together. Stop the back-and-forth and schedule a joint call with all vendors involved and your internal stakeholders. Keep the conversation focused on solutions and ownership, not fault. When everyone is aligned, excuses evaporate and problems are resolved faster.
4. Escalate appropriately. Ask for a senior engineer, team lead or account manager when frontline support stalls. Higher-level staff often have more context, authority and incentive to resolve persistent issues.
5. Know when to walk away. If a vendor consistently avoids accountability, misses deadlines, or fails to improve after feedback, it may be time to explore alternatives. Staying with the wrong provider costs more in downtime, frustration and lost productivity than the disruption of switching.
Partner with Cytranet
The relationship with your IT provider should be a partnership built on trust and mutual accountability. With the right structure, documentation and expectations, you can regain control and steer the relationship back on track — or choose a better partner.
At Cytranet, we provide robust Fractional CIO services that oversee the entire IT environment, act as the point of contact for vendor escalations, and align IT with growth, efficiency and risk reduction. Request a consultation to learn more.
