Microsoft and Cisco Consulting Best Practices
Progent’s team of Microsoft and Cisco Certified consultants average more than ten years of real-world industry background, at the front lines of IT service, performing a wide range of technical tasks for a large mix of clients. Every Progent support professional shares a refined set of best practices which are incorporated into company-wide best practices training that Progent teaches its consulting personnel. This means that you get not just world-class technical capability, but also a consultant with proven methods for applying computer knowledge to resolve real-world network problems efficiently.

Features and benefits of Progent's best practices include:

  • Individual Professionals
    Progent’s staff of IT engineers is composed of some the most experienced Microsoft and Cisco professionals in the industry. With more than 10 years of real-world experience for each consultant, Progent's Microsoft Premier experts offer a proven set of methodologies for resolving technical issues, managing projects, and delivering professional support. The technical depth of Progent's engineering team enables Progent to provide your business a consulting expert with tested ability and an effective technique for delivering quick and inexpensive network solutions.

  • Reliance on Teamwork
    When required, Progent utilizes a group approach to resolving the most stubborn network issues. By leveraging hundreds of man-years of background from Progent's Microsoft and Cisco Certified professionals, Progent can rapidly and cost-effectively solve even the most vexing issues. Working with hundreds of clients and completing thousands of sophisticated deployment and integration jobs every year offers Progent a unique perspective on which techiques succeed and which don't. Complex software compatibility issues are a minefield for even the most skilled engineers unless they have an extensive and varied background in real-world work with a wide variety of technologies.

  • Corporate-wide Policies for Best Practices
    Progent has used the aggregate experience of its senior consulting staff to develop an in-house, corporate-wide collection of leading practices intended to promote timely, cost-effective resolutions of information technology issues and to track and optimize customer satisfaction. These methodologies include a strong focus on customer communication and support recording. Progent's Founder and CEO, Les Kent, has a 35-year track record of successful technology integration, corporate management, sales and marketing, and operations. Progent's company-wide best practices are significantly influenced by Mr. Kent's experiences developing challenging technical solutions while working as a network designer, software developer, task manager, implementation expert and troubleshooter.

  • Continuing Professional Education
    As an authorized partner with Microsoft and Cisco, Progent ensures that in-house consultants participate in ongoing technical and best-practices training that contains important lessons and methods for new product adoption that have been developed from the experience of hundreds of thousands of computer experts worldwide. This promotes continually more effective delivery of support to Progent's customers.

  • Internal Database of Problems and Proven Solutions
    Progent's advanced service documentation system provides comprehensive documentation for all delivered services. Each Progent team member has full access to all the details of services provided by any consultant to each customer. This history of issues and resolutions, as well as false alarms and missteps, is organized as an easily searchable in-house database that allows Progent's support professionals to share their experiences corporate-wide to ensure that the general efficiency of Progent's support expands continuously. This support history also eliminates your reliance on a single consultant by allowing one Progent consultant to pick up where another stopped while minimizing hours wasting getting up to speed on your information system environment. An additional benefit of Progent's support documentation system is that your business can more smoothly take on network support duties in house if it becomes cost-effective to do so, or you can migrate to another IT outsourcing firm if you grow dissatisfied with Progent's service.

  • Microsoft Solutions Framework Project Methodology
    For major projects, Progent engineers follow the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) model for delivering support. MSF breaks down projects into discrete and manageable components that reduce the risk of a project getting out of control. Each phase creates a solid foundation for the success of following phases. Design and deployment requirements are identified at the start of the project cycle so problems can be pi pointed and resolved before customer workflow is impacted. In addition, this keeps expenses from going through the roof due to unforeseen problems during major deployment. All project components are recorded to create a comprehensive database of technical services provided and to assist in ongoing network support.

  • Access to External Support Databases
    As certified support associates of Microsoft and Cisco, Progent has access to the world's largest technical databases and resources. Some of the most helpful support knowledge bases available to Progent's consultants are the industry best practices built into the various Management Packs published by Microsoft and third parties for use in conjunction with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, the automated network monitoring platform that is the foundation of Progent's special IT outsourcing packages. Management Packs (MPs) consist of specially built scripted rules that can respond to events, performance margins, and alerts tracked by Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. MPs can also give expert advice on how to handle certain issues by automatically finding relevant articles from the vast Microsoft support database.
To get in touch with Progent for mid-size business network support, call 1-800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.

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