New business is good; it’s the lifeblood of our business. But once the elation has subsided, the reality sinks in. Resourcing the service.
Support for the majority of our clients starts with a call to the helpdesk. And thanks to a growing number of calls, because we have more clients not more problems, we need additional helpdesk analysts.
The helpdesk operates without a call queuing system and endeavours to answer all calls within three rings – great for our clients, but a problem for us. Recruiting and training the right people is only half the battle; finding space for them all is another story altogether.
The growing helpdesk has begun to impinge into the engineering team’s space, leading to border disputes and bruised elbows, think cinema seat armrests with your siblings!
Which is why we recently moved the entire engineering team into a new larger office downstairs with plenty of space to expand. This team, is also growing, thanks in part to the increasing interest in hybrid cloud.
When manipulating huge amounts of data, 3D modelling for example, it still pays to keep the servers, application and data on premise, with utility based applications like Office 365 in the Cloud – the perfect hybrid mix.
But a hybrid cloud solution needs field service engineers to resolve issues with legacy on-premise hardware, which happily poses no problem for us here at Quiss.
Collaborate to grow
Clients also now see beyond the problem resolving and expect us to collaborate with them to ensure IT is a driver for growth and efficiency, not a stumbling block.
The ever-changing IT landscape and pace of change demanded by business, ensures we work closely and constantly with clients to deliver significant projects against their strategy, throughout the lifecycle of the contract, not just when they come on-board or go through a refresh.
Recently we have implemented infrastructure to support new bespoke applications, consolidated time recording systems, evaluated and recommended third-party security apps. We have also helped three clients migrate part of their activities to the cloud to help improve efficiency and productivity through Hybrid delivery. In some cases, moving some functions to a utility (PAYG) service.
However, security is the big driver of change as the threat of cyber-attack grows. Our engineers are skilled to integrate security applications/hardware to prevent malicious activity/attacks and work closely with clients to improve mobile device management.
We also help train employees to recognise phishing attacks and ransomware (among others) and how to effectively respond as per the Quiss Priority 1 incident process. The engineering team now includes, system engineers, network specialists, application and desktop engineers and dedicated project specialists, to say nothing of our cloud services team.
Limitless space with Azure
As the benefits of Microsoft Office 365 become clearer to a growing number of clients and prospects, we now regularlyĀ find ourselves managing the migration of their data, increasingly to the new Microsoft Azure data centres in the UK.
And of course, O365’s expanded service portfolio, including Skype for Business, Teams, Planner and Sway adds to our team’s workload implementing them and optimising systems to ensure users can exploit the full potential of these innovative apps.
Happily, we now have a Head of Talent Management who ensures every person in our business has their career mapped out, with plenty of support and incentives toĀ increase personal qualifications and achieve recognised industry qualifications, especially with a focus on Cloud Services.
All of which ensures we are able to promote from within to fill many of our senior specialist roles, as we continue to expand the teams that deliver the high-quality service our clients demand.
Rohen Farmer, Head of Technical Services, Quiss Technology plc
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