Overview
Businesses with 100 to 250 network users have traditionally been an underserved segment of the IT outsourcing market. The cost structures and service delivery models of large third-party support organizations make them too expensive for most mid-size businesses, who typically have small IT budgets with which to support IT networks whose complexity and sophistication are comparable to the information systems of larger enterprises. Progent's service delivery model, which takes full advantage of remote support, virtual office infrastructure and proactive network monitoring, dramatically reduces IT support costs while offering enterprise-level service from certified, world-class experts in a broad range of technologies.
Progent's co-sourcing services allow your business to find the right balance between in-house and outside support by leveraging the capability of your in-house IT staff with the in-depth expertise of Progent's engineers. By delivering effective support when you need it, providing specialists for critical applications, minimizing travel costs through remote support, offering unique services such as customized, automated server monitoring, and charging only for the services you use, Progent gives you an affordable way to maximize the business value of your network.
Why Progent Makes Sense for Mid-size Businesses
Progent's staff of certified IT professionals have extensive experience with enterprise networks, allowing mid-size businesses to achieve world-class IT support without having to maintain large internal IT organizations or absorb the high cost of outsourcing network support to large national service organizations.
Working with Progent allows your mid-size business to:
- Avoid Turning IT Management Into Crisis Management
Companies with 100 to 250 network clients often have sophisticated, enterprise-class IT infrastructures, but rarely have internal IT staffs with the depth and breadth of technical expertise to provide all the IT support that complex networks require. Internal resources are often overworked and budgetary realities do not permit hiring additional full-time IT staff.
These environments can be subject to higher than average employee turnover, which often leads to situations where replacement support staff must focus on keeping the network running rather than enhancing it. Lacking in knowledge of the history, design, implementation, and architecture of the network, and with little time available between crises, new support staff are unlikely to be able to plan and implement effective network upgrades or migrate the system to keep up with changing business requirements.
- Let Senior Management Focus on Business, Not Network Hassles
Many mid-size businesses are aggressively moving to outsourced support models for information technology because building up large internal IT staffs seldom pays off with strategic business advantages. Attempting to handle all IT service issues in-house can bog down senior management with the details of IT problems, yielding poor returns for time invested by such top talent.
Companies need reliable, feature-rich, secure, and fault-tolerant IT environments to support their mission critical applications, but they recognize that it makes little business sense to own and build such systems themselves or to manage large internal staffs of IT personnel. Smart outsourcing or co-sourcing allows companies to concentrate their internal resources on areas that will bring them the greatest strategic and competitive advantages in the markets they serve.
- Migrate Quickly to the Best Network Technology
Tough economic times have caused many IT environments to become woefully out of date as a result of IT budgets being slashed in the interest of survival. The starvation diets forced upon many business networks has created a burden of outdated information systems. This problem becomes apparent when the demand for new applications and customer-centered information solutions can’t be easily adapted to legacy systems.
Increasingly, companies are being challenged by upstart competitors who are not saddled with outdated environments and can quickly introduce state-of-the-art, customer-friendly applications such as web-based eCommerce, vender extranets, customer portals, and integrated supply chain management. Often such major initiatives can't be carried out solely with existing resources. Adding to full-time head count seldom makes long-term economic sense for project-specific work, and companies typically don’t have the time to bring resources up to speed for business-critical projects. In these circumstances, it can be very cost effective to engaged outsourced resources that can solve problems immediately.
Unique Advantages of Working with Progent
As a Microsoft Gold-certified consulting firm,
Progent is an acknowledged expert at the fundamental system software and productivity applications used by most small and medium-size companies. As a Cisco-certified partner, Progent also can provide help for an ever more sophisticated array of network products including firewalls, routers and switches, voice-over-IP solutions, and wireless access. In addition, Progent's
CISSP-certified security experts,
CISM-qualified security engineers, CISA-qualified security audit specialists and GIAC-authorized security engineers offer a business-wide view of system security.
The breadth and size of Progent's consulting staff offer a unique set of benefits to companies wishing to maximize the productivity of their IT network within an affordable budget. These advantages include:
- Best Practices
Progent’s team of Microsoft and Cisco certified consultants average more than ten years of real-world professional background, at the forefront of IT service, executing a wide variety of technical projects for an extensive mix of customers. Each Progent support professional shares a proven collection of personal best practices which are incorporated into company-wide best practices training that Progent instills in its support team. This guarantees that you get not only expert technical capability, but also a consultant with proven approaches for using technical knowledge to resolve actual network problems rapidly.
Find out more about Progent's best practices for network consulting.
- Value Pricing
Progent's pricing model is to bill for online service and on-premise help by the minute. Consequently, you owe only for received services. Progent does not impose a more expensive rate for after-hours or urgent support, and Progent does not bill for travel time except for urgent support where on-site time is less than four hours. Also, Progent applies no startup charge and requires no monthly commitment. Many support organizations impose large minimum payments or charge in increments of fifteen minutes or more. Progent's small pricing granularity eliminates huge invoices for quick fixes so you won't be tempted to permit minor problems to stay unaddressed until they become major ones.
Find out more about Progent's value pricing for IT outsourcing.
- Full Documentation of IT Services
Progent has developed a comprehensive support reporting system that stores and organizes complete documentation for all delivered support activities. Unlike many freelance consultants or small service firms who provide minimal documentation or specifics of tasks performed, every service provided by Progent is accompanied by comprehensive documentation. Every Progent consultant has access to the service documentation sent by each staff member to every client. The discipline of detailing and archiving support records results in more effective support and avoids a variety of typical problems such as when a support customer is virtually held hostage to a consultant who won’t let go of vital service information.
Find out more about Progent's documentation of IT outsourcing services.
- Knowledge Transfer
Progent is committed to information transfer from Progent's consultants to clients. By teaching customers to deal with technical issues that are within their scope, Progent can focus on delivering hard-to-find services where Progent has little competition. Small businesses who utilize trusted freelance service providers or who maintain internal support personnel benefit when Progent passes on knowledge about critical technology and proven methodologies to make their IT environments more robust, protected, and productive.
Find out more about Progent's knowledge transfer services.
Service Delivery Options Available for Mid-size Businesses
To suit the needs and budgets of mid-size businesses, Progent offers a variety of options for delivering support, troubleshooting and consulting services. Options include nationwide remote support, on-site service in most zip codes in the U.S., and 24x7 network monitoring with automated alerts. Find out more about Progent's
service delivery options for mid-size businesses.
Security Services
Progent offers a wide range of network security services to help businesses to identify and eliminate security vulnerabilities, defend against attacks, and recover from successful penetrations. Progent can provide remote and on-premise security consulting and also has developed economical fixed-cost security evaluation packages to complement Progent's regular by-the-minute billing. Progent's security assessment packages provide businesses with an economical way to comply with security standards mandated by state regulators or by customers.
Hosting Services
Progent's application hosting services such as Hosting Services for Microsoft Exchange offer a secure, affordable, and hassle-free alternative for managing mission-critical applications by combining the dependability of a world-class data center with the expertise of Progent's Microsoft Gold-certified support team. Progent's Virtual Data Center Hosting service gives midsize businesses a cost-effective option for hosting a variety of software platforms and key applications in a secure, fault-tolerant data center on a high-performance virtual host configured and maintained by Progent's network support experts.
Virtualization Expertise
Progent can provide expert consulting to help midsize businesses efficiently deploy advanced virtual server platforms in order to save money, improve reliability, and streamline disaster recovery. Progent offers and VMware virtual server help, Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V support, and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 expertise. Progent's engineers can help midsize businesses design networks that get the full benefit of virtualization, implement virtual servers to enhance network performance, dependability, and manageability while cutting expenses, create and validate business continuity procedures that reduce downtime in the event of a catastrophic network failure, and provide continuing consulting and support for virtualized environments.
Microsoft System Center Operations Manager-based Network Support Packages
Progent has developed special Network Support Packages based on the automated problem detection and analysis capabilities of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, a powerful network management platform that monitors the reliability, throughput, and security of your network servers and alerts you to problems before they can impact your productivity. Progent's Network Support Packages also include network evaluation, security assessment, Help Desk support, and the design of secure data links between your system and Progent’s support engineers. Find out more about Progent's special Network Support Packages for cost-effective IT support outsourcing.
For concise details about Progent's IT support offerings, check out our Spec Sheets for IT Outsourcing and Server Monitoring Offerings, available in Acrobat format for convenient downloading.
For an example of how Microsoft Operations Manager helped a San Francisco Bay Area business achieve enterprise-class network management, read the
Microsoft Operations Manager Case Study.
To contact Progent about Network Support Packages for mid-size businesses, call 1-800-993-9400 or send email to network-support-help@progent.com.
