Computer Outsourcing for Midsize Businesses

Microsoft and Cisco Consulting Best Practices
Progent's team of Microsoft and Cisco Premier Certified consultants average more than a decade of hands-on industry background, in the trenches of network support, performing a broad variety of IT tasks for an extensive array of customers. Every Progent support professional shares a refined collection of best practices that are incorporated into shared best practices training that Progent instills in its consulting personnel. This means that you get not only world-class IT help, but also a consultant with field-tested approaches for applying technical knowledge to fix actual IT problems rapidly.

Features and benefits of Progent's best practices include:

• Individual Professionals
  Progent's team of network consultants is made up of some the most accomplished Microsoft and Cisco experts in the industry. Averaging more than a decade of real-world experience for each consultant, Progent's Microsoft and Cisco Premier experts offer a tested set of methodologies for solving technical problems, managing projects, and providing consulting services. The technical depth of Progent's engineering team allows Progent to provide your business a consulting expert with task-relevant skills and an efficient approach for delivering fast and inexpensive IT solutions.

• Reliance on Teamwork
  When required, Progent relies on a group technique to solving the most difficult technical problems. By aggregating hundreds of man-years of background from Progent's Microsoft and Cisco Certified experts, Progent can rapidly and efficiently solve even the most challenging problems. Working with hundreds of clients and completing thousands of sophisticated implementation and integration jobs annually gives Progent a unique view on which approaches succeed and which don't. Complex software compatibility issues are a minefield for even the most talented consultants unless they bring a long and diverse history in hands-on work with a broad variety of technologies.

• Corporate-wide Policies for Best Practices
  Progent has incorporated the aggregate background of its top consulting personnel to create an internal, corporate-wide collection of methodologies intended to ensure fast, affordable solutions of technical issues and to measure and maximize client approval. These practices include a powerful focus on client communication and services recording. Progent's Founder and CEO, Les Kent, has a 35-year track record of successful technology consulting, business management, sales and marketing, and operations. Progent's company-wide best practices are significantly driven by Mr. Kent's background creating complex technical solutions while acting as a system architect, program developer, project manager, implementation expert and diagnostic engineer.

• Continuing Professional Education
  As a certified partner with Microsoft, Progent makes sure that staff consultants participate in continued product and best-practices training that includes valuable lessons and methods for new product integration that have been gleaned from the practice of hundreds of thousands of technical professionals around the world. This results in increasingly effective provision of services to Progent's customers.

• Internal Database of Problems and Proven Solutions
  Progent's advanced service documentation system provides detailed documentation for all provided services. Each authorized Progent staff consultant has full access to the specifics of services provided by any engineer to each client. This database of issues and resolutions, as well as false alarms and missteps, is arranged as an easily searchable internal information store that allows Progent's consultants to share their knowledge corporate-wide to ensure that the overall efficiency of Progent's consulting services expands over time. This support history also eliminates your dependence on an individual engineer by making it possible for one Progent expert to take up where another stopped while saving time spent getting familiar with your information system environment. An additional advantage of Progent's service reporting database is that your business can more smoothly take on IT management duties in house if it appears cost-effective to do so, or you can move to a different consulting company if you become dissatisfied with Progent's service.

• Microsoft Solutions Framework Project Methodology
  For major projects, Progent engineers follow the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) model for providing support. Microsoft Solutions Framework separates projects into discrete and rational phases that minimize the chance of a project falling off track. Each step creates a solid base for the success of later phases. Planning and deployment requirements are defined early in the project continuum so difficulties can be pi pointed and dealt with before customer workflow is impacted. This also prevents costs from spinning out of control because of unforeseen problems during production deployment. All phases are recorded to build a comprehensive description of technical services delivered and to help in ongoing system maintenance.

• Access to External Support Databases
  As authorized support partners of Microsoft and Cisco, Progent has access to the industry's most extensive information technology knowledge bases and resource pool. Among the most helpful technical knowledge bases accessible by Progent's consultants are the operational best practices incorporated into the various Management Packs published by Microsoft and other vendors to be used in conjunction with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, the proactive network monitoring software that is the foundation of Progent's special IT outsourcing packages. Management Packs consist of specially designed scripted rules that can react to events, thresholds, and warnings monitored by Microsoft Operations Manager. MPs can also give expert advice on how to handle certain problems by automatically extracting relevant articles from the vast Microsoft Knowledge Base.