Be honest—when’s the last time you did a deep dive into what your IT budget is actually being spent on?

Not just the dollar amounts, but where that money is going. Are you getting real value? Or are you paying for software, services, and tools that aren’t pulling their weight? This is what we call software bloat—those shiny tools you’re paying for but never use.

One organization we worked with was shelling out $900 a month for a network switch. $900. For one switch. They had no idea it wasn’t supposed to cost that much. That’s not just a small mistake—that’s budget bleed, plain and simple.

What’s even worse? It’s not an isolated incident.

If you haven’t sat down with your IT team to go over what you’re paying for, versus what you’re getting, you’re probably leaving money on the table.

If they can’t give you clear, confident answers to the questions below, it’s time to take a closer look.

Here’s a question that’ll keep you up at night: What happens if your top IT person decides to take a two-week vacation? Worse—what if they quit?

Do you have someone who can step in? Or will your entire system fall apart the minute they’re gone?

This is where redundancy comes in. No, not the boring kind of redundancy. We’re talking about ensuring no single person holds all the knowledge. Because if one person is the only one who knows how to fix the network, you’ve got a problem.

It’s common, especially in smaller companies, to rely on a “one-man IT show.” But that’s a single point of failure. It’s a ticking time bomb that could cost you big if things go wrong. And we’ve seen them go as wrong as they can. An organization reached out to us after their IT team died in a tragic accident. Not only were they mourning the loss of two people, but they now had no one to manage their IT and keep their business operational.

If the answers aren’t crystal clear to the following questions, you might need to rethink your approach to IT staffing.

Let’s get one thing straight—if you’re running a business today, you will be attacked. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, a cyberattack or data breach will happen. The only question is: How ready are you?

If your answer is, “We’ll figure it out when it happens,” that’s not good enough.

Your in-house IT team should have a clear incident response plan in place, ready to go at a moment’s notice. If they don’t, you’re setting yourself up for disaster.

The average cost of downtime during an outage? $427 per minute. How much is your company willing to bleed before getting back up and running?

If your IT team can’t give you specifics, you might want to consider a third-party audit to help you shore up your defenses.

“I’m not a tech expert, but I trust my IT team.”

We hear this all the time. And trust is important, but as an executive, it’s also your job to verify.

Are they really keeping everything up-to-date? Or are they telling you what you want to hear?

Here’s the truth: Most executives can’t tell the difference between an efficient IT operation and one that’s barely treading water. The only way to know for sure is to dig into the data—or have a third party do it for you.

Your IT team’s performance doesn’t just impact your systems—it impacts your people.

If your internal IT team is slow to respond to employee issues, if they’re brushing problems under the rug, or if they’re hard to work with, it’s costing you more than you think. Frustrated employees lead to lower productivity, higher turnover, and overall dissatisfaction across the board.

And if employees feel like they’re not being heard? They’ll start finding their own workarounds. Tools you don’t know about. Unsafe practices you haven’t approved.

If your employees aren’t happy, it’s a sign something’s broken. And fixing it could save you a lot of headaches (and money) down the road.