Problems with Installing Updates and Plugins

Hello,
So I’m putting together a site for a company I’m working for and I’m having some problems both installing updates and installing plugins to the WordPress installation. Whenever I try to do either of those two things I get a message that asks me to type in my FTP information. So I contacted our IT guy and he gave me the FTP information where the installation is located. Once I enter the information it says that the information is incorrect and won’t let me either update or install anything within WordPress. Our IT guy checked to see if the server was being reached by WordPress at all but there’s no sign that WordPress was even attempting to do so. Does anybody know a solution to this problem? I’m trying to transfer the site from one installation to the other but unless I can do these things I can’t run the WordPress importer tool.

This has never happened to me before on any WordPress installation. It has never asked me to enter my FTP password to access certain things. Do you guys think it could be a permissions problem of some sort? HELP PLEASE!

Thank you!