When a Private Equity company acquired several fire alarm and safety businesses, it faced significant challenges: each business operated independently, utilized legacy hardware and software, and lacked standardization. This was wide-ranging and significant, resulting in inefficient resource utilization, an increase in overall costs and numerous security issues.
Summary of NMC Value provided:
NMC Managed IT Services provided significant business value in a very short timeframe:
- Reduced overall IT operating costs by 25% in year 1 and 40% in year 2 (reducing direct costs and increasing application availability)
- Resolved all causes of system downtime and addressed all IT risks impacting the business (e.g. security, backups, system instability, disk space)
- Performed an IT security assessment and remediation of immediate issues, while also putting into place a roadmap for security administration
- Provided full management of all IT Infrastructure tools and business applications
- Standardized IT support through a central, “single point of contact for all issues”, 24×7 ITIL based Service Desk. This enhanced end user experience, improving communication with IT staff through multiple channels, leading to a better user experience and greater companywide collaboration.
- Resolved data administration, security and accessibility issues through data migration, application and system upgrades
- Global IT Visibility: Providing a single pane of glass for visibility into the global IT footprint and problems, enhancing oversight and management.
The Business impact not only reduced costs but also enhanced business productivity and improved customer experience. NMC’s Managed Services was a valuable business enabler for maintaining existing business, growing revenue and the customer base and enabling faster onboarding and integration of new acquisitions.
The Initial Challenges:
- Legacy Hardware: Outdated and out of warranty equipment across multiple businesses led to hardware failures causing business downtime
- No Standardization: Disparate systems with no unified support approach. No monitoring meant backup failures went unnoticed, and end users were always the first to report application downtime
- Security Challenges: Consistent and ongoing security threats through multiple sources (e.g. email, unpatched firewalls, old anti-virus definitions)
- Business Environment:
-
- 500+ employees
-
- 400+ monthly incident volume
-
- $200million annual revenue
-
- No central Service Desk system to tracking incidents, service requests or changes
-
- Multiple IT vendors and contact points / methods: Complex web of responsibilities meant no one owned problems to resolution
The NMC Approach:
- 24×7 IT Infrastructure Monitoring and Management: Ensuring constant oversight and quick response to all issues, measured by published Service Level Agreement (SLA).
- End-to-End Incident and Service Request Management: Providing thorough management of incidents and services, ensuring that issues and service requests are managed from beginning to completion.
- Program Management & Governance: Robust structures for managing the program and ensuring efficient execution. The business had clear visibility of the IT environment, issues and their resolution in real time through regular reporting and real time dashboards.
- Consolidated IT Operations: One central IT group and contact point responsible for all of IT. Unified IT operations under one leadership, breaking down silos and fostering collaboration across all business units
- Integrated IT Tools and Processes: Streamlining / consolidating multiple IT operations tools and processes for greater efficiency. Implemented standardized IT Infrastructure and End User Support tooling framework
