Profile
Established in 1985, Rochesters Chartered Accountants are a leading firm based in the St Paul’s Jewellery Quarter area in Birmingham with around 20 full-time staff.
Rochesters employ staff with a range of skills to meet the diverse needs that clients may be looking for from their accountants. This includes tax specialists who deal with compliance, corporate finance, auditing and accounting, bespoke planning and advisory services to name just a few.
Issues
Rochesters were unhappy with the service that they were receiving from their incumbent IT Partner. Service Level Agreements had been set at the start of the contract but were regularly being missed. In addition to this they felt they were being given false promises and that the service they were receiving was unreliable.
They were concerned that if they didn’t move providers then it would soon start to have a negative effect on day to day processes and the business as a whole.
In addition to this, they also had a requirement for a Disaster Recovery plan so they were prepared for any incidents that may occur.
Solution
After completing a comprehensive audit, we implemented our Support Plus Solution. This provides Rochesters with an outsourced IT department and has taken over with the day to day running of the IT within their business.
We also continue to help them procure goods and implement these onto their network.
In addition to this, we have also implemented a Disaster Recovery solution which will provided additional hardware to them in the event of a disaster.
Berefits
The Support Plus contract is based on the user headcount within the business. The per user cost is fixed for the length of the contract thus providing Rochesters with financial predictability when it comes to IT support.
With this contract, Rochesters now has access to Quiss’ 30 man UK based helpdesk and can make an unlimited number of calls for support to them during the lifetime of their contract.
They also benefit from 20 mobile engineers who are on call should they require on site assistance for issues that cannot be solved remotely. This includes hardware break fix, for all servers, PC’s, laptops, printers, scanners and networking equipment.
All parts for hardware cover are included within the contract as well so there are no hidden charges at all. For even more financial predictability, any additional equipment that Rochesters purchase throughout the lifetime of their agreement with Quiss is automatically added to their contract free of charge.
All Microsoft software is also covered and again is supported either via telephone, remote access or with an engineer to site should it be needed.
We also carried out a Network Optimisation Audit which enabled us to see the state of the network and what, if anything we would have to rectify before taking over the support. We do this for all new customers to make sure we start a contract with no outstanding issues.
At the beginning of the contract, very tight SLA’s were agreed to define the manner in which problems will be fixed, for example, telephone, remote access or an onsite visit as well as the timescale in which they will be rectified.
We have also implemented our Disaster Recovery Ship to Site service into Rochesters. We have 4 service levels available depending on the level of response required in the event of a disaster. Rochesters opted for our top level Gold offering.
With this service, all hardware is commissioned and deployed to the secondary site within 24 hours of notification of the disaster. An initial configuration exercise would be undertaken, with Rochesters’ operating system, all applications and data being loaded onsite.
One of the key benefits of the gold level that they have chosen is that they receive daily backups, month-end tape verification and offsite tape storage. This means that should a disaster strike, everything has been backed up so they will have real time access to their data once they are set up at their secondary site. They would also receive full onsite support and use of the system for up to 8 weeks, although if needed, we would extend this period.
