Displaying items by tag: IT Network support

Monday, 24 October 2011 08:13

Why is ITIL Important in Selecting Los Angeles IT Consulting Companies

It is one thing to claim that a regional IT Consulting company is good at what it does or that “hundreds of satisfied clients can attest to its success.” It is another to backup those claims with real methodology that is consistently successful, replicable, and transparent, even in a large market such as Los Angeles where there are so many IT Consulting companies. Then the question arises, how does a prospective client determine IT Consulting firms that have raised themselves above the amature line from those that have not.

One possible answer to this questions can be separated into its components. Companies in need of outside IT support need a very high degree of qualified IT staff availability, consistently high quality of troubleshooting, and the highest degree of IT network design and proactive planning.

Scenario
We can use an example to demonstrate how this would work. Let’s say a company is looking for an IT Consulting company in Los Angeles for one of its regional offices located in the Los Angeles area. The local office has around 40 machines that have several servers, including a data server, a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES), an Exchange Server, and several Virtual Servers running application servers such as MAS 200 and a bar code / electronic paper storage server.

When the IT manager is tasked with selecting a local IT Consulting and Support firm, the question arises of what should the criteria be and how do we identify a Consulting firm that is truly looking our for our needs from the ones that just know the terminology. After interviewing several candidates, the IT manager is no closer to the answer than before the process began. The IT manager asked the IT Consulting candidate firms if their staff members have MCP or MCSE or CCNA. Having dealt in the past with professionals possessing these certifications, the IT manager does not have a strong feeling that these criteria will provide assurance of success. What he or she is left with is, just a hunch and a personal feeling of who would do a better job, but not a real answer.

Solution
To truly resolve this intellectual impasse, the Los Angeles based regional office needs to ask itself a few questions based on the type of IT network that it is running and the it stated goals.
Based on its current IT system, this company needs to identify a Los Angeles IT Consulting firm that can ensure:

Timely updates to all physical and virtual servers (timely means that as these updates appear, the impact of their deployment is assessed by a qualified team and scheduled for deployment shortly after they become available)
- The timing of such deployments have to be planned in accordance with the understanding of the operational environment of the local, sister, and parent offices.
Proactive planning of computer network design and structure to ensure best practices in intrusion security, permission security, data access security, and operational efficiency.
A streamlined and timely bilateral communication system between all the pertinent technical and administrative departments with the client’s operations with the IT Support firm’s decision makers and operations managers.
Continuous preventative maintenance and support activity to minimize IT network downtime and inefficiency both at the entire network level, server levels, and nod levels.

Besides these operational goals, the local office would be wise to look for a Los Angeles based local IT Consulting company that can:

Improve customer satisfaction through a professional approach to service delivery
Improve IT services through the use of proven best practice processes
Improve ROI of IT expenditures
Improve delivery of third party services such as ISPs and others
Improve morale recipient staff
Increase productivity of client’s own local IT staff
Reduce cost of IT system training
Improve systems/ applications availability
Reduce cost/ incident
Reduce hidden costs that traditionally are not easily visible
Improve asset utilisation
Be a clear business differentiator from competitors (be a strategic enable for business profitability)
Closely align to commercial business services and products
Provide greater visibility of IT costs
Provide greater visibility of IT assets

Without some sort of a magic wand, how would a potential client, such as our IT manager be able to truly test and/or identify an IT Consulting firm in Los Angeles that delivers these results in deed, not in word? We arrive at an answer, a commitment to an IT services provider standard that encompasses it all. IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a standard of performance that an IT Consulting firm should ascribe to and adhere to in order to provide the client with the above goals on a consistent basis. While this standard of performance and a methodology that is not perfect, it give companies much better indicators of what to expect from a potential IT provide. At least, this approach could serve as a viable and operationally pragmatic starting point for an informed selection criteria.

Backup Solutions

The TTIG managed backup solution is a safety net on steroids, providing daily motoring and confirmation of the integrity and safety of all data under management. Step into controlled environment of TTIG Disaster Recovery and Data Redundancy Planning.

+ Learn More

Security Solutions

In today's world of data vulnerability, we provide your organization with the best security practices, continuous risk assessments and even managed security monitoring when necessary. Our approach is comprehensive, our solutions increase security. Control Your Data!

+ Read More

Managed IT Services

We centralize our IT Management Process to ensure complete situational awareness through continuous client communication, network monitoring, alerting, and preventative network maintenance. Managed services allow for reduction of downtime through a highly proactive

+ Read More

Business IT Support

Why is ITIL Important in Selecting Los Angeles IT Consulting Companies

Backup Solutions

Security Solutions

Managed IT Services