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SysArc Secures New Managed Services Business with Government Contractor in Virginia |
Rockville, Maryland / February 22, 2011 / SysArc, an information technology support services and managed services provider in the Washington, D.C. area, announces that it has won an award with a 150 person government contractor in Virginia to manage, maintain, and provide support services for the firm’s computers, networks, and employees. SysArc, founded in 2004, is a recognized leader in providing reliable and cost-effective technical support to address complex technology challenges confronting small and medium sized businesses. SysArc has earned a stellar reputation for helping small and medium sized businesses reduce IT costs while providing a higher level of service and support than these customers were receiving previously.
In an era of increasing economic and competitive challenge, SysArc enables customer firms and their employees to focus on their top priority – growing their business - while it manages their servers, networks, and computers. Among its extensive array of services, SysArc provides unlimited enterprise quality desktop, server, infrastructure management and end-user support for a predictable monthly fee. Many businesses throughout the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area have realized the benefits of SysArc’s efficient, cost effective solutions.
Other prominent benefits of working with SysArc include guaranteed service response times and server up-time. SysArc also works flexibly with customers to provide outsourcing service for all or just part of their information management and technology needs. Prospective customers can call to receive a complementary analysis of their current monthly IT expenditures as compared to similar sized organizations in their industry. SysArc knows how your costs stack up to your firm’s peer companies because they serve customers across a tremendous breadth of industries: accounting, education, finance, health care, high technology, law, manufacturing, non-profits, real estate, retail, and software, to name a few.
For more information about SysArc, to read about its extensive menu of IT solutions, and to schedule your complementary monthly IT cost analysis, please go to: http://www.sysarc.com. SysArc is a leading information technology support services and managed service provider serving business customers in the greater Washington, D.C. area and is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland.
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The Advantages of Caller ID and Voice Mail |
Cellular telephones are handy for those on a busy scheudle, whether for business or personal use. They supply a means for you to chat with family or friends when emergencies happen or when you need a question quickly answered. To go enjoy additional benefits from your cell phone, you should probably set up the voicemail and caller ID features and capabilities.
These two features frequently come standard on most new cell phones as they can provide an effecient way to capture missed calls and / or avoid unwelcome calls on your phone.
Voicemail Benefits. Voicemail on a cellular phone is analogous to an answering machine, except without the machine and recording cassettes. It can be configured on your cellular phone with your own private message or with an automatic message. Voicemail enables your callers to leave messages if you are not available to reply to the call or if you're on the line with somebody else. Voicemail will even take messages for you even if your lose all of your battery power.
Check Voicemail from Anywhere. Almost all mobile phone plans permit you to access your voicemail from anywhere, even from another telephone ( land line or cordless ) at your house or away at a hotel or while on vacation. Also, most voicemail plans allow free access to voicemail even if you're out of your network.
Caller ID Benefits Caller ID lets you save time and money by giving you a method to avoid unwelcome calls and to see who's calling and to determine if it is an important call or not. With caller ID, you can see the name and number of the person who is on the line before responding to the call. The screen will typically show a name or telephone number, or both. It will also show a caller that can't be identified in which it might be a personal number or that of a telemarketer. If you see that it's a number you do not recognize, you can simply not answer the call and have them leave a message on your voicemail if it is something important.
Furthermore, with voicemail and caller ID, you can reduce the anxiety about who might be calling. You can turn your ringer off or turm down the volume while dining or if you happen to be out for the evening and know you can check voicemail messages later on. You no longer have to be concerned about phone calls interrupting your meal, entertainment or fun.
You should be able to purchase cellphones with plans that utilize these features. Most will find great deals online or at their local mall.
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Managed IT Services Benefits |
Managed Service Providers (MSP's) can simplify and streamline your Information Technology (IT) operations as well as reduce your IT expenditures by providing systems, solutions and software applications as a completely externally administered and service.
A standard network support services offering should provide your company with predictable monthly costs, access to best-of-breed technology and the latest applications available in the marketplace - all without the often costly and frustrating process of overhauling your technical infrastructure on a regularly scheduled basis.
In addition, most Managed IT Service providers offer 24x7 administration services, allowing your employees to focus on the more strategic aspects affecting your business.
In order to deliver and maintain effective and optimized networks, specialized skills and resources are frequently required. However, the costs associated with this level and type of expertise are usually too cost prohibitive and time consuming for most organizations to endure.
As your company and employees become even more dependent on technology to achieve your business goals and objectives, the costs to properly maintain your technical infrastructure quickly becomes no longer tolerable.
Furthermore, this does not even take into account the unpredictable performance and reliability issues that usually results from this approach.
As such, you have probably begun to explore and partially implement solutions to better leverage and utilize your often substantial investments in technology.
Furthermore, as technology becomes increasingly more important in the daily operation within your company, your technical environment has become even more complex, difficult and costly to manage, maintain and effectively support.
However, your company must optimize the availability and performance of your technology if you want to realize the greatest return from these investments. Also, you must minimize the potential risk of any downtime, system crashes, or other technical glitches that could severely disrupt your business operations or result in employee frustration and inefficiency with the very tools that are support to help them with their jobs.
As a small or mid-size business, the industry understands that the management of your Information Technology can be an especially daunting challenge. Even large or enterprise organizations are facing challenges as they compete in today’s global marketplace. As a way to enhance their competitiveness and focus on their core business offerings, many have now decided to outsource their entire IT operations to a Managed Services Provider.
The Constant Challenges of Managing your Information Technology
Organizations of all sizes are increasingly relying and looking at ways to more effectively leverage technology to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their business operations.
For all areas and departments within your business, technology has probably become a critical corporate asset required to support a number of critical business processes.
As a result of the rapid evolution and adoption of technology, it is now even more possible to deliver cost-effective goods and services to your customers and business partners, as well as more effectively communicate with your geographically disperse workforce of mobile or remote workers. While these capabilities can dramatically expand the reach and presence of your company, less than 20% of a company’s technology budget is allocated to business innovation.
The failure of your technical systems, IT support company or a lack of optimization within your infrastructure can also have a detrimental or negative effect or impact on your company’s operations and reputation within your marketplace. Given the highly competitive nature and the lack of traditional customer loyalty within of our current economy, no company can tolerate ongoing and reoccurring problems with their investments in technology. However, even as the scope and number of potential problems facing your company continues to grow, 80% or more of your entire IT budget is probably spent on nothing more than basic maintenance tasks.
Unfortunately, your company most likely lacks the proper resources and skills to keep your systems optimized and consistently operational. Furthermore, as the number of mobile and/or remote workers increases, your company also faces the increasing more frequently occurring problems associated with lost or stolen laptops that contain sensitive customer records or other confidential information.
In addition, your business must contend with a wide variety of software operating systems, multiple networking protocols, as well as escalating and constant security threats and challenges. As a direct result, complete system failures are now occurring with a greater frequency. These system failures may be caused by computer viruses, spyware, malware and as a result of a wide variety of security attacks. However, system failures may also be caused by issues resulting from incompatible software, the inappropriate configuration of hardware, or the failure to properly apply patches or properly manage memory load imbalances.
It has been our experience that most internal IT staff members are still fairly reactive in their response and management of potential IT issues. The primary reason is due to their lack of IT management systems. In some instances, a purely reactive approach to supporting your environment and staff may simply be due to a lack of skill sets and knowledge of the latest approaches and industry standard best practices.
Since your company is probably not regularly installing and testing patches or monitoring utilization levels, you may fail to properly protect or unintentionally overload your systems, thereby causing crashes that will disrupt your businesses, place your valuable data at risk, as well as create frustration and anxiety for your employees, clients and partners.
Despite the reality that your company may need to serve and support clients around the world, you are probably unable to monitor and measure the performance of your systems around the clock. This is because you lack all of the needed and required IT management software or you may even lack specific technical skill sets.
As a result, you are missing key performance indicators that would enable you to more proactively manage your systems and prevent problems and costly network downtime. Even if your IT systems and business applications are optimized and constantly available, your company is probably uncertain if you are truly getting the best return on your investments.
In order to resolve these issues, you will need to make additional investments in IT management systems, software and staff. Ironically, IT management software and systems can be as complicated and costly to implement and maintain as the IT systems and software they are intended to manage.
Because your IT staff is frequently responding to system and end-user support issues, they most likely have little if any time to perform strategic work or offer support in any innovative projects. A lack of system documentation and staff turnover can even further compound these issues. This lack of continuity within your company can make company even more vulnerable to system failures or security threats.
However, simply adding individual IT contractors to augment your internal resources isn’t cost-effective and will never completely address your IT requirements. A” traditional” IT support service company is also inadequate because they typically only support the specific products or applications they sell and are unable to proactively manage your entire IT environment.
A more attractive option should be exploring the services of a Managed Services Provider (MSP). An MSP assumes responsibility for the ongoing, automated and management of all of your computing resources and business applications to ensure their continuous availability, optimal performance and maximum security. The goal of an MSP’s offering is for you to realize the greatest business benefits and return on your IT investments.
A Managed Services Provider will offer considerably more value than a traditional “maintenance agreement” or block hour support plan. These service options are often product-specific and most certainly only reactive in nature. An MSP’s value is a result of their ability to assume the responsibility for proactively managing all of your hardware systems, software applications and network infrastructure to prevent downtime and increase overall IT performance.
A Managed Service Provider utilizes centralized management systems and MSP staff skills to meet and exceed your evolving and ever changing IT management requirements so that you can focus on your core businesses and strategic and tactical goals.
A Managed Services Provider differs from traditional outsourcing arrangements as they focus on more specific elements of your IT infrastructure. Some examples include your desktops, mobile devices (PDA’s), storage and back-up systems, messaging and your security needs.
A traditional outsourcing services agreements typically encompass an entire IT operation, extends over five years and often includes restrictive contract terms and conditions.
However, a Managed IT Service agreements tend to be shorter and more flexible allowing the MSP to better respond to your changing support needs.
In summary, Managed IT Services are a selective outsourcing or out-tasking solution that allows your company to incrementally adopt the MSP’s offering in a manner that augments your internal capabilities as well as one that can be adjusted to meet your unique business requirements.
While many regard managed IT services as an ideal solution for SMBs, there is a great deal of industry data that indicates that an even greater proportion of large-scale enterprises (55%) are currently under contact for managed IT services.
In one recent industry survey, the most frequently Managed IT Service utilized among the respondents were; managed email/messaging, help desk, data backup and recovery/business continuity, security, desktop and local area network (LAN) services.
Summary and Conclusions
Because of the current marketplace, many organizations have become increasingly dependent on information technology to increase their competitive marketplace. However, most are unable to ensure the reliability, performance, stability and security of their IT infrastructure.
Instead, they discover that they frequently expend more time, money and energy than they would like attempting to stabilize and fully leverage their Information Technology assets.
In an increasingly competitive environment in which organizations must focus on their core businesses and correctly manage their operating budgets, they cannot tolerate IT downtime or the added expense of keeping their IT systems up and running in an optimal state.
They increasingly are also no longer satisfied with IT support vendors that simply react to problems. Instead, they demand that their IT partner adds value by actually reducing the risk of system failures while simultaneously optimize the value and financial return of their IT investments.
Benefits of Managed IT Services:
Network Operations Center
Built around a suite of industry leading Service Management tools, "Best of Breed" Remote Monitoring and Management tools and a "Best Practice" methodology for delivering managed IT services, a Network Operations Center (NOC)is designed specifically for the maintenance, support and the management of your network and complete IT infrastructure.
Often based entirely in the United States, a MSP can leverage highly skilled technicians to perform actual troubleshooting and remote remediation to your technical support issues.
A standard service offering provides a flexible solution that incorporates monitoring and reporting, documentation and IT process alignment, management of alerts to resolution and a comprehensive selection of preventive IT support tasks—all provided in a complete package that assure maximum infrastructure performance and optimization.
Access to skilled and certified technicians and engineers that do not hire “script readers”
- US Based Network Operations Center (NOC)
- Integrated with an Infrastructure Support Framework to create a complete and comprehensive solution for your company
- Industry standard best practices, methodologies and tool sets
- Leverages Best in Class remote monitoring and management tools
- A true value-added extension to your support team
Help Desk Solutions
Almost every large corporation realizes the benefits of a Help Desk to solve their employee’s computer issues, why shouldn’t your company? Just because you aren’t a “mega” corporation, that doesn’t mean you have to waste your time and remain frustrated with nagging and reoccurring computer problems.
An industry leading Help Desk solution is designed to be comprehensive yet extremely flexible and easy-to-use. An initial tech assessment can determine your applications and systems and help your selected vendor develop an escalation plan and service level agreement that is tailored to your unique business requirements and objectives.
Creating, designing, and implementing a help desk from scratch can be a very costly and time consuming undertaking. Vendors have already made this investment of money and resources and can deploy this solution to your staff very easily and quickly. Help Desk solutions have been in operation for many years and supports the needs of a wide variety of clients. With experienced, friendly and skilled personnel, your vendor is an expert in help desk services for the small and mid-tier business marketplace.
With a solid Help Desk solution, you can focus on the more pertinent aspects of your business, while no longer having to worry about your technology affecting your efficiency and effectiveness. If desired, help desk engineers and support staff can work with you and your associates as if they were an integral part of your team. You can get direct access to IT experts that will work directly on the day-to-day tasks to effectively support your business.
Some of the features of a leading Help Desk offering include:
- Industry standard Methodologies and Tool Sets
- On Demand and Ad-Hoc Reporting
- Leading customer satisfaction ratings and client retention rates
- Certified Engineers ensure that your support issues are resolved by courteous, friendly and knowledgeable experts
- Proven call-taking, problem-solving and escalation methodologies adapted to your unique needs
- Access to state-of-the-art technology
Data Back Up and Recovery Solutions
Like most companies, your business needs to maximize staff productivity, lower expenditures and decrease risks on a daily basis. This means you will need your servers, desktops and applications up and running around the clock.
Every business should be prepared to handle a number and wide variety of potential issues that will negatively impact productivity. These issue may range from a stolen laptop, failed email server or a file or folder that has accidentally been deleted. Granted, some of these issues are relatively minor, and some may actually result in your entire business coming to a grinding halt. However, one thing is consistent: all of these issues will negatively affect your employees and customers, and thereby affecting your bottom line.
According to a recent survey conducted by IDC, the average small to mid-size business utilizes a combination of four or more Diaster Recovery technologies to help reduce downtime and increase up-time. However, despite a substantial investment in money and resources, more than 60% report still having data recovery issues.
Why would a company need four or more technologies to address their data protection and back-up issues? The reason is that there hasn’t been an efficient way to protect the different operating systems (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux), critical applications (Exchange Server, SQL Server, Other) and different devices (Laptop, Desktop, Server) without cobbling together various solutions from different vendors. With this complexity, it is wonder that over 60% of businesses fail to protect themselves properly.
Fortunately, there is now a viable solution that allows for the fast and predictable recovery of data loss or server outage. Even better, this technology can be delivered as One Solution, from One Vendor, as A Service. The most reliable backup and business continuity service for your business makes it simple.
Today’s industry leading solutions offer the first complete data protection service for small and medium business (SMB) customers. Furthermore, they are designed to ensure business continuity every day and protect your most important asset—data—in the event of loss or corruption. With just a simple click, your IT Support provider can restore lost data in minutes, not days, weeks or even months like other solutions.
Message Archiving
A simple matter of "who wrote what to whom" can mean major trouble for your business.
Businesses that do not adequately store, manage and monitor all of their inbound, outbound and internal email messages are increasingly at risk from costly audits, fines, lawsuits and governmental investigations.
Furthermore, the escalating costs of Electronic Discovery (eDiscovery) as well as in-house storage solutions can raise the stakes against your business.
There are several solutions on the market that may be of benefit to your businesses - particularly public companies and those in the healthcare, financial services, law and insurance industries.
In addition, these solutions may help your business comply with a variety of electronic security regulations. Convenient and cost-effective, managed IT services offers a solution to monitor, store and retrieve all of your inbound and outbound company emails.
In order to minimize the cost and risk associated with non-compliance, loss of proprietary information and inappropriate employee emails, a leading solution can provide oversight and control over your entire email environment.
When combined with the optional features and functionality, your business will have the key initial components of a comprehensive email security solution.
Also, several current solutions available in the market can easily and effectively help your businesses comply with electronic security regulations like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, HIPAA, and the new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP).
An IT Managed Services Provider can also help protect your businesses from workplace compliance issues, including harassment, discrimination and illegal activity.
After implementing a comprehensive solution, your business will be able to:
- Minimize the cost and risk associated with non-compliance, loss of proprietary information and inappropriate employee emails
- Simplify email surveillance and archiving with a scalable, easy-to-use managed service solution
- Boost your profitability with an affordable alternative to in-house solutions that can easily escalate your labor and overhead costs related to compliance and email management
Benefits
- Enable regulatory and workplace compliance
- Minimizes costs and risks
- Simplify email archiving and surveillance
- Enable the enforcement of your corporate email policies
- Increases staff productivity
- Safeguard your business integrity
A comprehensive Managed IT Services solution can offer a perimeter-based security solution that blocks over 99 percent of spam, viruses, worms and harmful content and attachments. In addition, there is typically over a 90% reduction in costs related to the protection of Spam as well as wide variety of mail threats.
An email defense system can be continually updated by your support provider from outside your firewall at the network perimeter. To help protect against the latest threats, leading solutions utilize a unique multi-layered system of more than 20 separate filters and expert logic.
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Cloud Computing for Your Business |
Although Cloud Computing is certainly one of the latest and most common buzzwords coming out of the technology industry, it still has many people scratching their heads and wondering if this is a technology solution they should implement within their business.
At a basic level, cloud computing is a solution that consists of accessing software applications through the Internet versus an internal network server that is physically located at your location.
The more popular applications of cloud computing technology include hosted email, online data backup, software-as-a-service (SaaS) in addition to hosted IP based phone service (hosted VoIP).
A complete cloud computing environment comprises the outsourcing all of your network servers and associated applications to a third-party data center in which another organization has the ultimate responsibility for the on-going maintenance and up-time of your systems.
The primary benefit of cloud computing solution includes a lower total cost of ownership that results from the more efficient utilization and leveraging of technology. For example, though the use of virtualization technology, several servers may be consolidated down to just one physical server—resulting in reduced cost as well as providing enhanced support capabilities via centralized services management.
Another benefit is the increased availability of faster internet bandwidth speeds thereby offering your staff performance that is very comparable to that of an internal network.
In conclusion, cloud computing can often eliminate the requirement to procure new or additional hardware, offer built-in disaster recovery functionality, minimize power consumption, remove maintenance costs, as well even free up physical office space.
Also, your Information Technology (IT) support staff will now be able to focus more time and efforts on ensuring the continued successful delivery of your core service offerings.
However, we have heard some clients express concerns. These primarily involve considerations around data security, protection, and assurance, reliance on internet service up-time, potential bandwidth performance issues, maintenance and support as well as concerns around vendor management and the potential increased risk in finger pointing amongst vendors.
However, we still believe that cloud computing is a viable solution that is definitely worth further consideration and discussion.
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Nationwide Conference Management Provider Selects SysArc for Information Technology Support |
SysArc is pleased to announce that it has received a contract to provide a wide range of Information Technology (IT) solutions to help this quickly growing provider of conference management services that supports both the federal government and the private sector.
SysArc will provide computer and technical consulting, deploy their infrastructure management tools and applications as well as offer technology and business consulting to ensure the continual up-time and optimization of this organization's substantial investments in infrastructure and technology.
Under this all-inclusive and fixed-price contract, the company will receive server, desktop and end-user assistance via SysArc's NOC, that includes; Proactive Technology Management, Reactive Support Services, Network Administration, Technology Consulting and access to their Professional Services team.
SysArc’s Chief Operations Officer Tim Brennan remarked, "We are pleased that another industry leading company has decided to place their confidence in our abilities. The completeness and thoroughness of our solutions continues to resonant with our prospects and clients."
SysArc Partner James Eglin commented “Like many others, this organization was frustrated with the level of value they were receiving from their current provider. In addition, they were concerned about this vendor’s inability to scale and grow as the business continued to expand. After reviewing our standard offering, our value proposition-as well as the deficiencies of the previous vendor-the decesion and need to switch became very quickly apparent."
About SysArc:
SysArc provides expert technical services and Information Technology solutions needed to effectively compete in the small and mid-sized commercial marketplace. We deliver enterprise quality technical, business and technology consulting. Our solutions and offerings help our clients ensure the continual alignment of their investments in technology to their strategic as well as and tactical business objectives, reduce their overall technology expenditures, enhance the stability of their technical environment and improve staff efficiency and business effectiveness.
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Association Chooses SysArc for Managed IT Support Services |
SysArc is pleased to announce that it has received a contract to provide Managed Infrastructure support software, ongoing maintenance and support in addition to business and technology consulting to this quickly growing Washington, DC Association.
Under this Fixed-Price contract, SysArc will provide computer and infrastructure support, software and reporting to ensure the optimization, up-time and overall security for all servers, desktops and devices.
The association will receive technical support via SysArc's Network Operations Center and Infrastructure Support Framework to include Proactive Technology Management, Reactive Support Services, Network Administration as well as continual Technology and Business Consulting.
In addition, several advanced technologies will be deployed to help ensure continued business process improvement and that any support issues may be efficiently and effectively resolved. The support services will draw upon and leverage SysArc’s six years of technical and business experience assisting small and mid-sized organizations throughout the Washington, DC area.
SysArc’s Director of Operations Tim Brennan commented, "We are very excited that another Association has selected us as their trusted partner. We will continue to leverage our deep industry experience and knowledge, as well as our substantial investments in people, technology and processes to provide this client with the highest possible levels of computer support and customer service."
SysArc Partner James Eglin stated that, "We are proud that this award further solidifies our organization as the preferred provider of Information Technology services within our marketplace. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that this client had been using the services of another IT support provider for many years, and once they became familiar with our comprehensive and value-based offering, they immediately made a switch even before their existing contract expired!"
About SysArc:
SysArc provides expert technical services and Information Technology solutions needed to effectively compete in the small and mid-sized commercial marketplace. We deliver enterprise quality technical, computer network support and business and technology consulting services. SysArc’s services and solutions help our clients ensure the continual alignment of their investments in technology to their strategic as well as and tactical business objectives, reduce their overall technology expenditures, enhance the stability of their technical environment and improve staff efficiency and business effectiveness.
SysArc, Inc.
11300 Rockville Pike
Rockville, Maryland 20852
800.699.0925
http://www.sysarc.com
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SysArc Picked by Leading Audiology Practice to Provide Wide Array of Information Technology Services |
SysArc announced today that it has been awarded a contract to provide infrastructure support software, maintenance and business consulting to this Maryland-based Audiology practice. The award is a Fixed Fee contract with a one year base period and the potential of multiple year options.
SysArc will provide technical and business consulting to ensure the continual optimization, up-time and security of the servers and desktops of remote and Corporate Headquarter staff.
The company will leverage its NOC to provide Proactive Technology Management, Reactive Support Services, Network Administration and Technology Consulting and deployment of these technologies and services to ensure continual business process improvement and that the highest possible quality of support is being delivered to the customer. The services will draw upon SysArc’s six years of technical and business experience supporting small and mid-sized business throughout the Washington, DC metro area.
According to Tim Brennan, SysArc’s Director of Operations, "We're very pleased that one of the leading Audiology practices in the United States has chosen SysArc to perform these services based on our long-term experience and the array of Information Technology and Business Consulting credentials we bring to the table. We will continue to work closely with this practice to ensure we satisfy its business goals and objectives and exceed its expectations."
SysArc Partner James Eglin observed that, "We're proud that this contract allows SysArc to continue our support for commercial organizations throughout the DC area and also offers the opportunity to apply our experience to other organizations that need responsive, dependable and affordable solutions to efficiently operate. This award is a strong reaffirmation of our long-standing commitment to small and mid-sized businesses and reflects the continued confidence in our ability to deploy our solutions-on time, on budget, and with assured SLA's."
SysArc provides professional technical services and technology solutions needed to prevail in the small and mid-sized commercial marketplace. We deliver enterprise quality deliverables; hosted exchange solutions, disaster recovery planning, infrastructure design and implementation, tech spend analysis, vendor management and vendor transition planning. SysArc’s offerings help our commercial clients ensure the alignment of technology to their strategic and tactical business objectives, reduce their overall technology expenditures, improve the stability of their technical infrastructure and increase staff efficiency and business effectiveness. SysArc is based in Rockville, Maryland and has locations in Reston, Virginia and downtown Washington, DC. Visit SysArc on the web at www.sysarc.com.
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Managed Service Provider Announces Customer Bill of Rights |
SysArc. Inc., a leading provider of Managed IT Services and Computer Support to businesses throughout the Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia Metro area, is pleased to announce the establishment of their Customer Bill of Rights.
Our pledge was enacted to ensure the continual delivery of superior technical support while simultaneously provide industry leading customer satisfaction and service.
Your Customer Bill of Rights comprises the following promises and rights:
- You have a right to expect and demand complete satisfaction from the information technology and technical services you receive from SysArc. As a leading provider of managed services and computer support, we will deliver exemplary service, on-time and within your budget. To continue to surpass your service expectations, we will expand our use of best-in-breed technology and continue to hire the best technical talent available.
- You have a right to expect SysArc to sustain the highest levels of personal accountability, professional commitment, and employee empowerment in every interaction with our organization. At all times, you will be treated with the utmost levels of courtesy, responsiveness, integrity, and respect.
- You have a right to understand all of our business policies and support procedures within every aspect of our business. We believe it is your right as a SysArc client to to fully understand the capabilities and functionality of your technical support team before, during, and after a support task has been requested or completed.
- You have a right to expect us to lead the way in fostering and implementing innovation and creativity in our service offerings through an unyielding commitment to providing the best technology and services possible.
- You have a right to individual attention and dedication. Not only will your technical support team provide prompt, courteous, and efficient service in every one of your interactions, but they will also adhere to the highest levels of honesty, integrity, and professionalism.
- You have the right to know the status of your account and task lists and activities, no matter what time of day or night. We will provide secure access to updates and status reports via your IT Management Dashboard-24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- You have the right to be notified immediately by either phone or email if there will be a delay or a change that could impact the scheduled completion of your project or service request.
- You have the right to access and receive our renowned technical support services no matter the size of your firm or organization.
- You have the right to a single point of contact to discuss any issues or concerns. This individual will act as your dedicated IT Manager and advise you of any developments concerning the work we perform for your company.
- You have the right to receive the best value in computer and network support services in return for placing your trust and business with us.
"The establishment of our Customer Bill of Rights, along with our continual and substantial investment in people, process and technology, clearly demonstrates our commitment to this marketplace. These pledges were formulated after discussions with numerous clients and prospects across a wide rage of industry vertical markets and address several of the needs that are unfulfilled by other service providers " stated James Eglin, Partner, in making this announcement.
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Managed Services and Computer Support Models-What's New? |
The recent economic turmoil has put tremendous pressure on organizations to explore ways to reduce costs across all areas of their business-and IT is no exception. Although most companies have implemented some level of technology to improve staff productivity, the cost of maintaining and supporting computer systems and ensuring continual end-user satisfaction can be significant and continues to increase.
Fortunately, the marketplace has responded and there are now several attractive alternatives for small and mid-size businesses (SMB) to significantly reduce their IT budgets while simultaneously improving the uptime, effectiveness and satisfaction of their investments in computers and technology.
The latest methods to supporting small and mid-sized businesses (SMB's) now comprises three distinct computer support models.
The first model is to invest and build out an internal IT Department. This option is by far the most costly to setup and maintain. Most organizations will need to budget about $120,000 for just a single IT support professional. For example, in the Washington, DC marketplace, an experienced senior tech will command an annual salary of $80,000-$100,000. With benefits ($10,000), overhead ($5,000), training ($5,000), recruiter fees ($15,000) and required software tools and equipment ($10,000), these costs quickly grow. Given the high demand for quality IT staff in our area, finding, managing, retaining and developing your technical person can be a difficult and time consuming process. Furthermore, based on industry standard turnover rates for IT staff, you will need to restart your recruitment process every two years!
Another frequently occurring option is to to outsource the support of your IT department to a sole proprietor or independent IT consultant. This initially attractive low cost alternative can actually be very difficult to make successful. However, these individuals can easily be found online, or through a referral from a friend or colleague.
Their resumes may contain many industry “buzz words” but their experience and skills are often focused on just a few technologies. More importantly, their limited resources do not allow them to scale to the cyclical needs of your business and they have few resources to respond to the ongoing demands of more than one account at one time. Furthermore, almost all have not made the substantial investment in system management tools and applications and are therefore unable to offer Service Level Agreements (SLA’s). As such, you should be prepared to churn through several people before securing the one you feel can adequately support your business.
An option that is increasingly gaining favor is the outsourcing of your technical needs to a dedicated IT Support company or Managed Services Provider (MSP). This option has been proven to result in savings that exceed 30-50% of the cost of the in-house model yet you will receive higher levels of service and response than either of the other support models.
There are many variations on this model and you need to be diligent in selecting a partner that has a comprehensive service offering that can respond to your varied IT support needs and requirements.
It is usually recommended to select a company that offers fixed-fee pricing, utilizes a team of IT professionals that each perform specialized tasks and roles, has staff members with multiple technical certifications, leverages industry leading technologies to effectively manage your environment, has documented best practices processes and procedures, performs regularly scheduled onsite visits combined with unlimited remote support as well as a trusted partner that can recommend and successfully implement new technology in support of your business goals and objectives.
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Managed Services Leader Secures New Client |
We are pleased to announce that another Washington DC nonprofit organization has chosen our Managed Services offering as a critical foundation for the management and effective support of their infrastructure and employees.
This international nonprofit trade association will benefit from our comprehensive offering that comprises technology, people and processes.
This organization was especially impressed with our Technology Consulting and Planning and Vendor Management capabilities.
As such, we will be assigning a Virtual Chief Information Officer (VCIO) who will consult and advise on a number of business and technology issues. Some of these value-add items include the review our our Technology Summary and well as our Design Desk Resources, Budgetary Planning and assisting in the determination of the business impact of any technology decisions.
In order to provide the highest levels of responsiveness and customer service, we will be supporting this organization with a team of technical experts, each performing specialized tasks and roles.
Lastly, all of these services will be provided for a fixed monthly fee resulting in a tremendous value compared to other models or simple "hourly" plans offered by other vendors.
Opmerking:
SysArc is the preferred provider of IT Support and Network Support Services to companies in DC, Maryland and Virginia.