Among Progent's existing clients, the primary motives for outsourcing in general and using Progent in particular boil down to three issues:

Progent has built an organization structured to respond to these requirements. A good way to understand the advantage of Progent’s approach is to listen to past customers of the consulting firm, founded by Progent’s president Les Kent, that played a major role in forming Progent’s outsourcing model.

"Head count is a big issue," observed Larry Davis, IT Manager for Quester, a maker of capital equipment used by semiconductor manufacturers, "and consultants don't count as head count." Unfortunately for consulting firms the world over, this is not the whole story. Davis added, "A lot of consultants just don't work out. It's as hard to find a good consultant as it is to find in-house people. I've worked with Kent's consultants for three years and they've always come through. In this business, if you have reliable help you don't want to switch."

A good way to save money is to save time. This can mean IT staff time or customer time. Ideally, it means both. "Kent convinced us to replace our peer-to-peer LAN with Windows NT, so we gave them a weekend to do it," said Davis. "We touched 120 computers from 8:00AM Saturday to 4:00PM Sunday. On Monday all we had to do was the passwords. My customers didn't lose productivity. In fact, they probably gained productivity starting from day one. The old LAN used to crash daily and the NT system worked for eight straight months without a single failure."

The very best way to save money, of course, is to save money. "Kent designed our WAN so that four offices could share the servers located at a single site," said Larry Sebastian, IT Manager for RINA Accountancy Corp. "Three of our offices have T-1 links connecting their local PCs to the servers at our fourth office. This consolidated arrangement saves money on hardware and service and also cuts administration costs. We've been dealing with Kent's staff for 10 years and they've helped us expand geographically without letting costs get out of control. We've followed their recommendations about where technology is headed, and they've consistently been right."

Doing things right the first time avoids the IT manager's worst nightmare: zero return on major IT investment. Progent’s experience gives clients the benefits of the best practices culled from dozens of consultants, hundreds of clients and thousands of projects. "Our ISP offered turn-key services for Internet connectivity," said IT Manager Steve Noe from Ion System, a manufacturer of ionization equipment. "But when they tried to set up our firewall, we lost all access to the Internet. Kent was able to get things working in no time. It's great to be able to call on an outfit you have confidence in to get the job done. With Kent, you don't feel as if you're throwing the dice every time you try to enhance your system."

"Proactive" is a popular buzzword, probably because it describes how to detect problems without being hit over the head with them. Network management is an area where best practices pay off big time when they are proactive. "Kent knew exactly what to do about network management software," said Quester's Davis. "They recommended an SNMP package and quickly integrated it so that it calls our support staffs' beepers at the first sign of trouble. We usually find out about and resolve LAN problems before our customers even know anything's wrong."

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If you are interested in using Progent's outsourcing, consulting or support services, call 800-993-9400 or send email to information@progent.com

To download a PDF file of the complete IT Outsourcing White Paper, click:
Small Business IT Outsourcing White Paper: Outsourcing Advantages (140 Kb PDF file).