Ownership is not the same as doing the work
When people ask who should look after IT, they often mean who should fix things. That is a different question. The fixing can be done by an external provider, a part-time contractor or a capable staff member. Ownership means being accountable for decisions: what gets bought, which risks are acceptable, which projects happen this year, and whether the IT provider is doing a good job.
Without an owner, IT decisions get made by default. A staff member signs up for a new cloud tool because nobody said not to. A laptop is bought online because it was on special. The backup quietly stops working and nobody asks about it. None of these are anyone's fault exactly, which is the problem.
The accidental IT person
In most small offices there is someone who became the IT person by accident: the receptionist who is good with printers, the young accountant who set up the new Wi-Fi, the owner's partner who knows computers. They usually do a decent job and get little credit. They also usually lack the authority to say no, the time to do things properly and the training to spot real security problems.
If that describes your business, the answer is not to take IT away from them abruptly. It is to make their role explicit. Decide what they handle, such as being the first point of contact for staff and liaising with your IT provider, and what they don't, such as admin access to everything or security decisions. Give them time in their week to do it, and acknowledge it in their role.
Choosing the right owner
The best IT owner in a small business is someone who understands how the business operates, has budget authority or direct access to whoever does, and is organised enough to keep track of renewals and follow up on issues. In a firm of five to fifteen people that is often the owner or a director. In a firm of twenty to fifty, it is often an operations or office manager who reports to the directors.
Technical knowledge helps but is not the main requirement. The owner's job is to ask good questions: are the backups tested, who has admin access, what happens if the internet fails, what is this costing us. A curious, organised manager who asks those questions and insists on clear answers will usually do better than a technical enthusiast with no authority.
What the owner is responsible for
Write down a short list of what the IT owner owns. Typically it covers the IT budget and approving purchases, the relationship with the IT provider and other technology suppliers, deciding who gets access to what, signing off new systems before staff start using them, making sure policies exist and are followed, and being the person contacted during an incident.
The owner should meet the IT provider regularly, perhaps monthly for a quick check-in and quarterly for a longer review of tickets, risks and upcoming work. If you use a managed service like Office IT, that review is where the provider explains what has been done and what needs a decision, in plain language rather than a list of ticket numbers.
What the owner should not do
The IT owner should not be the only person with admin access to everything, and should not personally do technical work they are not trained for. Holding all the keys makes them a single point of failure; doing complex work themselves risks mistakes that cost more to fix than a technician would have charged.
They also shouldn't be the only person staff can go to for help. Staff should log problems through a consistent route to whoever fixes them, so the owner sees patterns in a weekly summary rather than fielding every question at their desk. That leaves them free to focus on decisions.
When the business grows
Somewhere around thirty to fifty staff, many businesses find IT ownership needs more time than a manager can give alongside their main job. Options at that point include hiring an internal IT coordinator who works with an external provider, a co-managed arrangement where an internal person handles day-to-day requests and the provider handles the infrastructure and security, or bringing in a fractional IT manager for a few days a month. The decision depends on how central technology is to the business and how much changes from year to year.
In short
- Separate IT ownership (decisions) from IT work (fixing things).
- Choose someone with authority and organisation, not necessarily technical skill.
- Make the accidental IT person's role explicit and limited.
- Hold regular reviews with your IT provider.
- The IT owner should not hold every admin password alone.