In November of 1995, an episode of Seinfeld aired in which Jerry and his friends visit a soup stand. The proprietor has an extremely regimented way that he insists his clients adopt in order to be treated with a bowl of his soup.
The concept is funny. The idea is that all of his customers must comply with the same set of rigid standards or they will not be served. Clearly, maintaining strict procedural standards ensures that an organization runs smoothly, but as evidenced in this episode, it can be taken to the extreme.
When it comes to developing a managed service plan, there is an element of adherence to standards that provides efficiencies that benefit the client due to increased cost savings and fewer support issues. When you are vetting potential Information Technology service providers, it would be very informative to discover the standards and tools that they use to perform their services. For example, if you want to incorporate Cobol 6 Migration strategies or write a customized program for your clients, your IT service provider should be able to assist you with your requirements. The federal government publishes a set of small business information security ‘best practices’ through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Your selected firm should not only be aware of these recommendations, but their Managed Service Plan should meet or exceed NIST recommendations.
Your monthly managed service plan should include costs for your anti-virus software (no more receiving bills or writing checks for annual renewals), it should include the cost for your daily data backup storage, your email hosting costs, as well as web and email content filtering. Unless extenuating circumstances exist, your MSP should use the same tools for all of their contracted clients. This allows for better purchasing power and more efficient end-user support when their technicians and engineers are all trained on the same packages.
In addition to the tools that are loaded at your site, there are other tools used to support an organized MSP. A committed MSP will employ back-end tools such as a support knowledge base, a Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tool, a Professional Services Automation (PSA) tool, and an IT documentation management tool. Each of these tools should be accessible to the resources in the Network Operations Center in order to ensure smooth and efficient maintenance and issue resolution. The more automated and streamlined your IT service provider is, the better equipped they will be to support you and your users with little to no disruption as your users complete their daily tasks.
If your IT support organization is not providing cost savings and efficiencies through effective standardization, you should tell them “No soup-port fees for you!”
Authored by Donald Nokes
Nick Eckman joined NetCenergy in 2016 from an international gaming company. Nick’s experience with supervising and implementing secure, fiber and copper wire infrastructure services provides our clients with a team of highly trained and experienced technicians. In addition to the skills required to manage our infrastructure services department, Nick brings a very experienced and focused approach to project management and is a stickler for accurate documentation for every project designed and built by his team.
Peter Lachapelle joined NetCenergy in 2015 and is responsible for leading all of NetCenergy’s operations and accounting functions. Each department within NetCenergy reports through Lachapelle. He brings his years of experience to maintain a pragmatic, efficient, client-focused team at NetCenergy. Lachapelle joined NetCenergy after completing a 27-year career with a Rhode Island, federally-charted bank which culminated in his senior management position as COO and CFO for the bank.
Peter Nelson has 25+ years of technology and management experience and has been with NetCenergy since inception. Peter serves as the VP of Engineering at NetCenergy. His role consists of managing the engineering staff, driving the companies technology strategy, and ensuring NetCenergy keeps up to date on new technologies and solutions.
As a Founding Partner, Dan is a result oriented individual who is always focusing on what is best for his client. He understands that business applications empower an organization and that technology must support those critical business applications. Dan’s technology career started in 1990 at EMC Corporation. Through the years, he has represented technology and consulting services for several organizations until 2003, when he and Don Nokes founded NetCenergy.
As President of NetCenergy, Don is responsible for ensuring client satisfaction, overseeing overall performance, and for providing direction to the organization. Prior to co-founding the firm with Dan Charland, Don held senior leadership positions with IT service firms ranging in size from $3 Billion to $10 Million in annual sales.
With decades of hands-on HR experience, Margery Ahearn is our Director of Human Resources, overseeing all hiring of new positions for NetCenergy with a careful eye on sourcing technology savvy engineers and skilled office-based professionals who fit our company culture, understand our commitment to our clients, and bring their time and talents to our team. Margery has both a BA and MBA in Business Administration from Southern New Hampshire University.