Building an IT service and support that suits our Clients needs, not our own.

March 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

IT just needs to work.

Like most businesses Hadden Construction relies on IT to help run the business effectively. With no dedicated in house IT resource, the company is also completely reliant on external providers.

Based in rural Perthshire with a turnover of circa £20m, Hadden is more than just a construction company, it also provides architectural, planning and surveying in house. Consequently when the company was let down badly by its IT provider, they knew they had to find someone who would deliver the service they required consistently.

Obsessed with Service

At OCD we have always been driven by our customers’ business requirements and the desire to ensure that we deliver what they need.  Hadden Construction is no exception. It was clear from our conversations with Hadden that the company just wanted reliable systems that work.

After resolving some legacy systems issues that we inherited from Hadden Construction’s previous provider, we introduced two core services to provide support and ensure systems reliability for the company –

  • Proactive Management – We visit Hadden Construction every two weeks to proactively manage the systems and ensure that they are working properly and within the tolerances we have agreed.
  • Support – The provision of reactive support both remotely to resolve problems and when required onsite visits to resolve more complex problems.

The combination of these two services provides a real backbone for Hadden Construction delivering reliable, well maintained systems that work, which is after all what the company wants, systems that work and enable the business to develop and grow.

Has IT worked for Hadden Construction?

Unlike the company’s previous situation, Hadden Construction can now rely on its systems and on OCD to make sure they are well maintained. In the event that something does go wrong the company can also rely on OCD to fix it quickly and with no fuss.

In summing up, Anne Nicol, Director of Finance comments, “Our experience of OCD has been very positive. We now feel that our systems are in genuinely safe hands”.

If OCD sounds like the kind of company you want to look after one of your most important business tools, give us a call – we’ll be happy to help.

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It’s great when companies stick to their promise…

February 8, 2011 By 1 Comment

Moving to a new future

Brown + Wallace offer a full range of professional construction consultancy services across a diverse range of market sectors. Each client receives a bespoke response based on their particular requirements and our wide and varied experience allows us to develop innovative solutions to meet our Clients’ goals and aspirations.

“Whilst we were generally happy with our previous provider and there is the overriding belief that it’s best to stick with the company that knows your systems, we decided to make a change after moving office in 2009,” comments Ian Macleod of Brown + Wallace .

The service from OCD is definitely pro-active as promised.

“We find the majority of our competitors are very reactive in operation, even when they promote themselves as pro-active, the reality is that means they simply check an email report from your server once per day.  Our systems continually check the status of your network throughout the course of the day and automatically issue alert emails to the helpdesk in addition to voice alerts which the support team hear in real-time and can act on immediately.  The result of this is that, on many occasions, the first time a Client knows there is an issue is when our team call to tell them we are actively working on a call for them”, comments Kevin Ashcroft, Managing Director of OCD.

This is backed up by Ian Macleod who says, “I was checking for updates and completing maintenance tasks myself as my previous provider would normally charge for these.  I really like the pro-active monitoring and the advice OCD provide off the back of this service.  It makes a real difference to the time I need to spend worrying or dealing with IT related issues allowing me to concentrate on my core role in the business.

I like how there is never any quibble whether a task is included in the service agreement which makes my life simpler and easier.  The team at OCD are very knowledgeable and efficient”.

The OCD effect

Ian Macleod comments, “OCD is definitely more monitoring-oriented which can only be a good thing.  That combined with their knowledge and efficiency definitely makes a difference to us.  OCD is a pro-active, forward-thinking company that views their customer’s business as important as their own.”

If you need your IT taken care of properly so you can concentrate on growing your business, then get in touch and find out why organisations like Brown + Wallace choose to work with us.

Download the full PDF here.

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You don’t need to go on an adventure to find peace of mind IT support

January 26, 2011 By 1 Comment

The right service is closer than you think.

MACS Adventure specialises in self-guided walking and active holidays in the UK and Europe.

“Running our own IT systems and dealing with all  the problems was taking up an increasing amount of my time.  I was becoming increasingly concerned about data backup, security and network issues and knew that only an IT firm could handle these problems.” comments Neil Lapping, Managing Director of MACS Adventure.

You don’t need to go on an adventure to find peace of mind IT support.

Like many growing businesses, MACS Adventure relied on one key member of the team to deal with their IT issues.

However, after a moment of clarity, Managing Director Neil Lapping realised this was harming the growth potential of his business.  He was being dragged in to situations which were not his core skillset or interest, to the detriment of the company.

Neil decided to speak with a number of IT organisations who had been referred to him via contacts and his business growth adviser at Business Gateway.

“From my initial contact, OCD were completely transparent on pricing, service and issues, offering me a range of solutions which met our needs.  They are a pleasure to deal with, offer small company customer service combined with big company expertise, advice and skills.  OCD have brought peace of mind, I know the team will sort any issues out quickly and efficiently, because of this I have recommended them on many occasions,” comments Neil Lapping.

The OCD effect.

Neil Lapping comments, “OCDhave been a pleasure to deal with.  Kevin should be proud of the great team he has built at OCD.  They are friendly, professional and really know their stuff.”

If you need your IT taken care of properly so you can concentrate on growing your business, then get in touch and find out why organisations  like  MACS Adventure choose to work with us.

Download the full PDF here.

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Cheaper IT support is rarely better

October 27, 2010 By 4 Comments

There is an old adage “when a deal appears to good to be true, it generally is too good to be true”.

We had a recent example where a Client moved to a new supplier to provide their IT support in Glasgow.

Several weeks into their new agreement, they have had a server failure and now need to perform a disaster recovery procedure.

Astonishingly the new provider never requested any information relating to the backup and disaster recovery solution in place when they took over the site.

Given how important this is to businesses, it’s a real clanger and in my view, shows a lack of care and appreciation for the good of the Client.

At OCD, we pride ourselves on our proactive service which cuts unscheduled downtime by almost 80% over most other IT providers.

It’s very likely that the money they felt they would “save” on this cheaper deal, has now been eaten up due to the failure, which, from a conservative point of view, equates to circa £750 per person per day in lost productivity.

Therefore if you have 10 staff, you have potentially lost a significant amount of money if your server is down for one day.

Anyway, it’s really something we should all bear in mind, if a deal seems to good to be true, it generally is, be wary!

There is a responsibility on the service provider to price their service appropriately for the service they promise they will deliver.

There is also a responsibility on the Client to look at a proper ROI and proof that the provider is capable of and will do what they promise.

We are seeing the same situation more and more at present given the economic conditions – companies are buying the business – reducing their costs by 50 – 60% to win business which can be fine, but not if you are promising the same level of service as you used to – it’s simply not common sense and doesn’t work.

The problem is you can’t ultimately provide a good level of service if you’ve priced it at 2 bob and a baloon!

We all have to be very, very careful if we are going for the cheapest possible deal, it’s likely we’ll get a level of service which equates to what we’ve paid and that will cost more in the long run in frustration and dissapointment, or worse still, potential damage to your business and your brand.

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Peace of mind is more important than anything else – IT Support for RFPG in Glasgow

October 21, 2010 By 1 Comment

Every week or two we’ll post a blog with one of our case studies to give you a feel for why our Clients partner with us and the value they get from our relationship.

Serving Solicitors since 1668

The Royal Faculty has been representing and helping solicitors in the west of Scotland for almost 350 years. It is not a large organisation, but it plays a key role in the legal profession delivering CPD, an extensive library, an audit function and representing solicitors.

Consequently it holds a lot of confidential and extremely important data on its systems that just cannot be lost or corrupted.

The organisation had been working with an internal IT function but found it did not deliver what the organisation needed.

Peace of mind is more important than anything else.

“We know from experience that trying to manage a small in house IT function is more expensive and difficult than it’s worth, so finding a reliable, external provider like OCD was the right answer for us,” adds John McKenzie.

Like many small organisations, RFPG relies on its IT systems to enable the business to operate, but at the same time, the organisation does not have a specialist IT function in house. So they have to rely on an external party to act as their IT department. This is what OCD does for the RFPG.

“When we started working with OCD, there was the usual nervousness about how effective they would be as a team. Our nervousness was replaced very quickly with peace of mind,” comments John McKenzie.

Our proactive and planned approach to IT support meant that we quickly put a plan in place which we agreed with RFPG to provide a planned support and maintenance programme. Their systems are now much less prone to unscheduled outages or failure, which keeps the team focussed on their vital work they do for solicitors in Glasgow and around Scotland.

Focused on what we need.

“We know we can rely on OCD and we know they will be there when we need them. This is the kind of support our organisation needs to make sure we can do what our members need us to, when they need it,” states John McKenzie.

Asked to comment on the service and relationship John McKenzie says, “Peace of mind is the phrase that best describes our impression of using OCD for our IT support.”

The services we provide the RFPG are no different to those we provide to other organisations nor is the level of service. So if you need an IT support company that you can rely on, get in touch and we’ll be happy to examine your needs and provide the service you deserve.

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Bringing a higher standard of IT support and more efficient processes to our Clients.

October 15, 2010 By 1 Comment

Every week or two we’ll post a blog with one of our case studies to give you a feel for why our Clients partner with us and the value they get from our relationship.

Support was not supporting properly.

Bield Housing Association is has been providing housing and services for older people since 1971.

One of the many services they provide to tenants is an Internet connected computer system in their supported housing complexes spread across Scotland.

“The user requests were not getting dealt with in the way we had hoped, delays and frustration were creeping in so we decided to deal with it proactively”.

Making a difference

Bield housing association made the decision to put the Silver Surfers project out to tender at the end of 2009. They were seeking an organisation who would be able to take care of the IT needs of the tenants whilst also improving the level of support and user experience for them and the staff.

As the 29 projects are spread across the length and breadth of Scotland, Bield required a company with the resource and infrastructure to deal with the geography as well as a proven track record of understanding and caring for older people and their IT needs.

“IT Support for the Silver Surfer project was not working. Volunteers and Service users were frustrated with long delays as remote access was not in place.” comments Bield Housing Association.

Since taking over the project, Bield staff and users have noticed a great improvement, Christine says, “I have only positive comments to make about the team at OCD. You have been very helpful and patient with the Volunteer Section. I have also received very positive comments from staff, tenants and volunteers at the schemes. I have appreciated the patience and helpfulness of you and your staff.”

The OCD effect

The association comments “A higher standard of IT support and a more efficient process are just some of the things you have brought to us.”

“If asked to describe OCD in a few words, we’d say – Professional, efficient, customer orientated and patient”

If you need your IT taken care of properly then get in touch and find out why organisations like Bield Housing Association choose to work with us.

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Cast Study – SCIAF – IT Support and service Glasgow

October 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Every week or two we’ll post a blog with one of our case studies to give you a feel for why our Clients partner with us and the value they get from our relationship.

A global challenge

SCIAF is an organisation that addresses the underlying causes of poverty in over 20 countries across the globe and helps people in these countries work their way out of poverty.

Like any modern global organisation, IT is an essential tool which must be reliable and up to date to ensure that SCIAF can stay on top of all its projects and the “business”.

Recently the permanent IT officer left forcing SCIAF to re-think its IT arrangements.

Virtual IT Department

When the IT officer left the organisation, the most important thing was to find a way to put in place a cost effective service that would ensure SCIAF ‘s systems were maintained effectively and supported properly.

“One of the things we really like about the relationship we have with OCD, is that there is a core team of people who look after us very well, so they know us, they know our set up and as a result we believe we get better service,” stated Ann Karlin.

Our Virtual IT service provides organisations with an outsourced IT department where we assign a team of experts to provide the core service to maintain and support our customer‟s systems. We also draw on some of the deep expertise we have in specific areas that our customers would likely not be able to draw on with an in house IT team.

A proactive IT maintenance and support organisation is an essential business service for many companies, when it includes the deep expertise and experience that we provide, it becomes a business benefit as well as a business service.

Excellence as Standard

With an agreement like this, information is vital to both parties and we meet regularly to update SCIAF and get updates from SCIAF .

To date, we have outperformed our service agreement significantly and helped SCIAF both reduce cost and improve the reliability and availability of the organisation‟s systems.

“OCD are really proactive. We know that our systems are maintained and looked after properly and we know what will need replaced or upgraded in advance. OCD make it all easy.” - Ann Karlin, SCIAF

“Nearly every fault is resolved in less than half the time allowed in the service agreement.” – Ann Karlin, SCIAF

Great quotes from a great Client, thank you.

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Case Study – The Tullochan Trust – IT Support and service Dumbarton

October 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Every week or two we’ll post a blog with one of our case studies to give you a feel for why our Clients partner with us and the value they get from our relationship.

Reactive support doesn’t work

The Tullochan Trust is the largest youth charity working in West Dunbartonshire providing inspiration and opportunities for over 400 children and young people aged 9 – 17 annually.

Tullochan provide a secure feature in young people’s lives, giving them the skills and experience to build confidence, self-belief and respect.

Tullochan’s previous IT provider was very reactive, response was slow and it was beginning to affect the morale of staff working on their day to day jobs.

Finding the right IT partner is crucial

True value needs to be measured not simply on the obvious investment of the support package, it needs to be measured on the real return on investment and the difference it can actually make to the effectiveness of a team and the morale in an organisation, our Clients experiences is cheapest is rarely best!

“Our previous IT company was essentially a very small operation, usually just 1 or 2 staff, and therefore was very reactive to issues and could take a few days to deal with the problem.” comments David Craig, Head of Fundraising for The Tullochan Trust.

The team at Tullochan found using the IT to be demotivating and demoralising until OCD stepped in and organised the IT as it should be, fixed outstanding issues and provided the promised level of support, David Craig comments, “OCD bring a tremendous amount of IT experience backed with sound and very knowledgeable staff. They very quickly audited our infrastructure and presented some cost effective solutions which would improve our systems. We have quarterly meetings with them to review things and discuss and plan the months ahead.”

The OCD experience
“OCD are different breed to other organisations we’ve worked with in the past. They really do care and will ensure that the guidance and advice is relevant to your needs whilst trying to identify cost effective solutions” states David Craig.

If asked to describe OCD in a few words, I’d say – Professional, experienced, caring and good value”

If you need your IT taken care of properly then get in touch and find out why organisations like The Tullochan Trust choose to work with us.

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The value of a great team

July 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Very often time passes us by so quickly that it’s easy to forget the quality of and the effort put in by the team around you.

At OCD we are very fortunate to have had such a team for a considerable time now.

In my experience it takes very little time to thank the people around you for the effort they put in, many times this being over and above the call of duty.

It’s great to be involved in such a customer focussed IT company where the team genuinely care about the results and service they provide to our Clients.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at OCD for their commitment, care, hard work, expertise and effort in providing the best possible IT support and IT services to our Clients.

You are a great bunch of people to work alongside and you are a credit to yourselves and the company.

Thank you.

Kevin

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National Server Downtime Day

April 6, 2010 By 2 Comments

Have you heard about the new public holiday being enjoyed by office workers all around the UK?

It’s called National Server Downtime Day. At least that’s what we’ve christened it here at OCD after our most recent research showed that – on average – 7.5 hours of work each year per employee are lost to every server outage.

That’s one full day of productivity per server per annum, presumably adding up to billions of pounds in lost revenue, and that’s just the average. The figures vary widely. We drew on a range of statistics, from the UK government and industry surveys to anecdotes from new customers coming to OCD dissatisfied with the service they’d received elsewhere.

We discovered one instance where 87 hours of work a year was lost to each server. On the flip side, that dropped to just over two hours for Windows 2008 servers in a large data centre. Recent independent research by operations management firm Avocent found that a third of companies had lost mission-critical data due to unplanned downtime and 43% reported, on average, up to five unplanned downtime events each month.

OCD customers face no such frustrating and unnecessary disruptions to their time and profitability. We are very proud to say that our clients experience unplanned outages of less than three hours per year – two hours and 42 minutes to be precise. That’s a performance rate of 99.99%, a phenomenal achievement given that most of the companies don’t have an IT specialist onsite.

OCD customers know that the service we provide will ultimately save or even make them money. As one put it recently, “We might as well have given the staff an extra holiday for the time we used to lose until OCD took over our support.” That customer now gets an extra day and a half’s productivity per server per year.

So how do we do it? Put simply, by learning about how your business works, by providing a bespoke IT system to meet those requirements and by adopting a proactive approach.

Our support and maintenance schedules always include:

  • Scheduled and planned visits by our Microsoft server experts who carry out a series of checks and maintenance routines to ensure that the server is working to specified tolerances.

 

  • Constant monitoring of servers using a wide variety of tolerances and thresholds so that if one of those is breached, a loud alarm sounds in our technical offices and we react instantly to bring server performance back to normal, which in most cases can be carried out remotely.

 

  • Keeping servers updated with relevant software patches. OCD tests them beforehand to avoid risk to server performance. This is something that very few other IT support companies do and it is often untested patches and updates that play havoc with server reliability.

 

OCD has been looking after the IT systems of legal practice David Devine & Company based in Glasgow since 2007. As David points out in this newsletter’s case study: “I’m pretty cynical about the promises made by technology companies, but OCD has delivered everything the way it said it would. In three years we haven’t had any unscheduled outages: I think that says everything anyone needs to know about OCD”.

And we agree. So let’s hear it for National Server Downtime Day – one public holiday that OCD customers won’t be taking.

Until next time,

 Kevin

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