The Hidden Margin Killer in IT Projects

In the IT sector, this is where a lot of teams quietly lose money. Not because they underpriced the build, and not because the client is intentionally difficult. It happens because the project slowly expands into responsibilities that were never clearly scoped in the first place.

Clients usually hire you to build something specific. A portal, an app, a dashboard, or an integration that looks clean and contained on paper. Everyone feels confident at kickoff because the scope document looks neat, and the deliverables seem straightforward.

Then the project starts, and reality shows up.

When You Become the Default Coordinator

A few weeks in, the requests begin to change shape. Can you coordinate with their hosting vendor and “just get it moving”? Can you join a call with their cybersecurity team and explain what your system is doing? Can you chase the CRM partner who has gone silent, because “they respond faster when you follow up”?

Then it gets even more familiar. You’re asked to debug a payment gateway you didn’t choose, or explain your work to their internal IT team because they’re confused and the client wants you to “help align everyone.” None of these asks feel unreasonable in isolation, and that’s exactly why they slip in so easily.

You want the project to succeed. You want to be helpful. And you want to maintain trust, especially when timelines are tight.

But slowly, without noticing, you stop being a delivery partner and become the default coordinator for an entire ecosystem you do not control.

Why This Bleeds Margin (And Creates Delivery Risk)

This is where most IT teams start bleeding margin. Vendor coordination is not a “small favour” or a one-time courtesy. It is ongoing work that eats time in ways no one can see in a sprint board.

It involves endless follow-ups, waiting for access, troubleshooting tools you didn’t configure, joining calls where nothing gets resolved, and managing delays that have nothing to do with your code. And even if your team is doing great work, the client rarely separates these issues. From their perspective, it is all just “the project,” and you are the common thread connecting every moving part.

That’s where the real risk sits.

If your contract is vague, integration problems start looking like your responsibility. Not because you caused them, but because no one drew a clear line early. When frustration builds, clients often respond in predictable ways.

Payments get delayed because “we’re still not live.” Invoices get questioned because “too much time is being taken.” Scope gets renegotiated because “it doesn’t feel smooth.” Not always out of bad intent, but because the outcome feels messy, so the value suddenly feels negotiable.

This is why strong contracts matter more than strong opinions.

A well-drafted agreement makes something very clear. You own your deliverables, and you own the integration points that sit within your environment. But you do not own third-party vendor performance, outages, response times, client-selected tool limitations, or misconfigurations outside your control.

Just as important, you need dependency rules that reflect reality. Most delays are not caused by development work. They are caused by missing credentials, slow approvals, lack of access, or unresponsive vendors. If those dependencies are delayed, timelines should move automatically. Not through negotiation, and not through arguments, but by design.

And if a client wants you to run the entire ecosystem, that can absolutely be done. But it is a separate role, with a separate scope, with separate pricing, and with separate responsibility.

Final Thoughts

Many IT teams lose margin because they quietly become the default coordinator for third-party vendors, tools, and stakeholders that they do not control. If contracts don’t draw clear lines, external delays and integration failures start looking like the IT team’s fault, which leads to payment delays, invoice disputes, and scope creep.

The fix is to define responsibilities, third-party exclusions, and dependency-based timeline extensions upfront - and treat “ecosystem management” as a separately priced role if the client expects it.

The actionable takeaway for IT teams is simple: decide early whether you are being hired to build, or to manage. If it’s both, then price it, scope it, and document it like a real deliverable, not like a favour you’ll “just handle.”

Clarity upfront is not about being rigid or difficult. It is about protecting your ability to deliver well, without being held responsible for things you were never meant to own in the first place.