I would say every company of a certain size or criticality should have a proper IT team. It does not even need to be large, but they need to have the expertise

I would say every company of a certain size or criticality should have a proper IT team. It does not even need to be large, but they need to have the expertise and authority to veto certain decisions. I often see vendor deals being made solely for the discount and other marketing crap, like getting another piece of service free as a bonus. IT then gets silenced because number goes up. I have seen situations where leaderhsip keeps asking IT/Engineering the same question "But why can't we just do this?" in different ways and dissecting the answers, asking for reports, and proof, and what not, so that IT is forced to make a bulletproof case against it. It then appears that IT has a personal thing against the vendor. So IT gives up. System is up. Often, part of the problem is the vendor buying lunch to key decision makers and being pals.