technology 13 Eight tips for maintaining IT success


Businesses of all sizes require an IT infrastructure that is well maintained so it consistently operates at an optimal level. Paul Timms, managing director of MCSA The Maindec Group, provides expert advice on choosing the best IT support & service provider, so when you make that change – you’ll experience a problem-free relationship


1 Look for depth


When approaching prospective maintenance providers, fully investigate the company behind the sales and marketing façade – making sure they possess the appropriate technical expertise to support their claims. Confirm that the maintenance supplier can support your IT estate from older legacy equipment through to models more recently out of warranty.


Investing


time to visit the company HQ and its engineering offices will help you get a real feel for the company and its people.


2 Thumbs up from others


The provider being considered should be able to produce testimonials to demonstrate its history of successful maintenance delivery and customer satisfaction. Gaining an understanding of the company through its customers, will be the next best thing to first-hand experience of the service you will be receiving.


3 Financial health check


Investigate potential providers’ balance sheets and profitability. You will be placing your business-critical equipment in the hands of this company, so it’s imperative that they will be around for the next three to five years to fulfil your contract. Furthermore, placing trust in the fact that you have a long-term future with the maintenance provider may allow you to negotiate reduced fees, on longer contract terms.


4 Loyalty and commitment


Ask the provider to reveal figures on its staff retention over the past five years. High staff retention is a good indicator of a well-managed supplier. Empowered and well-trained staff will be able to deliver quick, informed decisions, something which will have a positive impact upon the service delivery levels you receive.


5 A strong presence


Consider providers with regional offices that manage engineers locally and retain an extensive stock of spares. Also, if providers offer specifically-assigned engineers, they will quickly become familiar with your IT set up and systems – which should ensure a swift, pain-free, resolution of incidents.


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – JULY/AUGUST 2016 7 On the same page


When it comes to tying down the details in the service contract, gain a clear understanding and definition of the service parameters. Investigate exactly how cases are received and tracked by the provider’s call centre, and understand how they are escalated.


For instance, what is the definition of ‘logging a call’? At what point does the clock start? To you, it will be the moment that you ring the call centre and log the problem. But in some cases it’s not straightforward – you may experience long waits reaching a customer service agent, difficulty logging the call and lengthy investigations before the case is activated. This means that your four-hour break/fix promise won’t be progressed until all of this is complete – up to 24 hours after the problem first occurred.


8 Trusted adviser – shared values


You may have found a provider who ticks all the boxes, but the final ingredient for a successful relationship is trust. You need to be sure that they possess values that mirror your own and that you’ll be supported when you need them most. Look for a provider that can deliver a personal investment in your relationship, with a flexible approach to service delivery – to ensure a more effective, enduring partnership.


maindec.com Citizen UK case study


Watch distributor Citizen UK had to address the need for a better performing, more reliable, efficient and secure technology platform to effectively assist its 55 office-based and remote staff in the UK. In 2012, Citizen decided to initiate a general IT refresh and focused on upgrading and enhancing its IT environments at its head office.


MCSA, a leading provider of high-quality IT support services and solutions, was chosen to provide extra resources for this major IT project due to its impressive track record of implementing high-performance IT systems.


Citizen now has a leading-edge, highly efficient, more cost-effective, faster and available IT environment. The platform also delivers greater capacity, is simpler to manage, can be easily expanded and is more environmentally friendly. A better end-user experience is being achieved at its HQ. Citizen’s employees are experiencing faster data access times, better IT performance and security – with more bandwidth. This is also resulting in a significant increase in job productivity.


Brian Gillingham, finance, operations a IT director at Citizen UK, said, “MCSA’s team helped us by applying its technical expertise and excellent planning to ensure that the project was delivered smoothly- with minimal operational disruption.”


6 Keeping promises


Examine a provider’s ability to meet the SLAs you have in mind. If you expect a four hour break/fix SLA to be met, you must ensure that the provider has the in-house engineering breadth and expertise to meet this – as well as good fleet infrastructure, calls tracking and management processes. Beware of companies which use sub- contracted staff to deal with ad-hoc projects and problems, as this will undoubtedly compromise the service levels you receive and their ability to tackle in-depth technical issues.


businessmag.co.uk


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