Integral Search
Integral Search takes advantage of Octavia’s Managed IT Support Service (MITSS) to outsource all their IT support requirements
customer profile
Integral Search was founded in 2001 and is now recognised as a leading global search and selection firm, advising on senior level appointments in the specialist disciplines of audit, advisory, risk, compliance and taxation. They advise a broad spectrum of businesses and their clients range from accountancy and law firms to major investment banks and multinationals.
Headquartered near Covent Garden in London, Integral takes a long term view on all of their business dealings and this has enabled them to build strong partnerships with a number of leading global brands.
the problem
For a recruitment consultancy any distraction that prevents their staff from being on the telephone talking to customers and prospects costs money as Steve Skeates, owner of Integral search explained.
"We expect our office systems to function smoothly during normal working hours. Obviously, our IT investment is central to this. We cannot afford any downtime to our productivity tools such as e-mail and our customer database. As a result we need an IT partner that will look after all our support needs, leaving us free to get on with our business."
why Octavia
Octavia had been Integral's IT partner for a number of years providing their Flexisupport service to look after support issues. Flexisupport delivers a reactive support service on a "pay-as-you-go" basis for both servers and PCs. While this provides a good quality and cost-effective solution for reactive support problems for companies on a limited budget, a greater level of support can be provided by being more proactive, as Jerome Mohamed sales and marketing director of Octavia IS explained.
"Prevention is always better than cure and that was why we launched our Managed IT Support Service (MITSS) in 2009. It is an all-inclusive, proactive, IT support service for all aspects of IT Systems including servers, PCs, Macs, mobile devices and much more. Available 24x7 with inclusive on and off-site support, MITSS will deliver complete peace of mind for an affordable fixed monthly fee."
the solution
After reviewing Integral's support history and requirements, Octavia realised that they would be better suited by switching their IT support from Flexisupport to MITSS. "The number of calls we were making meant that switching to MITSS on a fixed-fee basis would be more cost effective," explained Steve. "We still get the great reactive service we got previously but now it is unlimited and coupled with Octavia's 24X7 remote monitoring to ensure that our systems are kept operating at optimum efficiency."
As part of the MITSS package Octavia automatically monitor and manage all PCs, Macs and laptops within the organisation together with any servers. This ensures errors can be identified and dealt with automatically before the problem inconveniences Integral's staff.
"MITSS is a tailored service that can be designed to meet any business need," said Jerome. "Also for those organisations that are looking at reducing IT costs, it will cost less than their current IT salary bill and provides direct access to numerous experts in all IT disciplines.
"It is also an effective way to save money if an organisation is considering increasing IT staff to free current resource to perform strategic IT projects. MITSS will deliver the resource to cover day-to-day requirements at less cost than a full time employee."
customer experience
“What is different about Octavia is that they are interested in building a relationship,” said Steve. “They have taken the time to understand what is important to us a company and designed their IT support solution around those needs.
"Our IT investment is a vital tool that we use to run the business. We don't want to be bothered about the details of keeping it keeping it running or becoming IT experts ourselves as that is not our business. By partnering with Octavia we have complete peace of mind that if anything does go wrong it will be sorted quickly and efficiently, minimising the impact on us."
the outcome
"We believe that with MITSS we have the best value-for-money for IT support," concluded Steve. "As well as the constant monitoring of all our systems we now have access to the combined knowledge of all of Octavia's highly experienced and qualified support staff. If we had recruited someone directly to do the job it would not only have cost us more, but their knowledge would only be a fraction of what is now available to us."
"Since we switched to MITSS the proactive and enhanced service it offers has certainly improved the experience of our users and decreased the number of problems we have experienced. Now we just accept that our IT systems will be available for us whenever we need them – a tribute to Octavia’s service!"
