Image
IT services ensure business continuity and free up resources for development – case Are
Content sections
Text
Are is Finland's largest architectural engineering company and a family business that provides solutions and services throughout the life cycle of a property. The company regularly tenders for IT services, and in the most recent tendering, Are's longtime IT partner Enfo was once again selected as the company’s service provider.
“Both costs and our long history with Enfo were taken into account in the tendering. For example, Enfo’s service desk has received top reviews from our users year after year. The services also matched what we were looking for,” says Tuomo Toikka, Technical Lead at Are. “Due to our long cooperation, Enfo really understands our business, which we find to be a valuable asset,” CIO Juha Merivirta adds.
Enfo takes care of Are's business continuity and aims at improving efficiency, among other things. The long customer relationship also enables the development of services. After the tendering process, Enfo will be responsible not only for managing the previous service package, but also for Streamline end-user services, Microsoft license and cloud services, and the renewal of both LAN and Wi-fi networks at all Are offices. With the new cloud-based LAN solution, Are will obtain access to new devices, for which the manufacturer will also offer support.
Enfo’s service desk has received top reviews from our users year after year.
Text
“We will get a clear overview of what's happening online,” Toikka explains. “The new solution also allows us, for example, to employ SD-WAN technology and integrate our Swedish offices into the same network, if necessary. This wasn’t possible with the old solution.”
Microsoft services as a foundation
In the IT services provided by Enfo, the largest package consists of capacity services, service desk services, and a local area network solution as well as workstation management and related support services. The service content of the service desk was expanded from what it was, so that the new agreement covers not only workstations but also O365 services and mobile device support.
“About half of the 3,000 employees in our Finnish organization are mobile users, and providing them with support and services has proved challenging. Support has been given by, for instance, our departmental assistants, so it’s high time to remedy the situation. Enfo and Are have a common roadmap which allows us to see whether it’s time to move on to Microsoft-based solutions,” Toikka says.
On the whole, you can see that the wheels are turning and everything works. The service is stable.
Text
When it comes to the data center and capacity solutions, Are is heading towards a hybrid model, which means that some workloads will be handled by the Microsoft Azure cloud service. An O365 email migration is also underway. Over the years, Enfo has been closely involved in developing the Microsoft services used by Are.
“On the whole, you can see that the wheels are turning and everything works. The service is stable,” Toikka says. “Enfo has always reacted to the concerns that we’ve raised and it managed to find a solution,” Merivirta continues.
“If necessary, Enfo has resources to deal with things even on short notice, which is not always a given,” Toikka says. “The experts responsible for things like development and maintenance of our server environment also haven’t changed along the way. This makes it much easier to get things rolling, since they know the environment well. On the whole, our overall satisfaction with Enfo is on a good level.”
IT outsourcing enables development
For Are, an outsourced model is first and foremost a sensible and efficient solution. The division of roles is clear, and it frees up our own resources for development. It is not necessary to maintain all IT roles in-house; instead, Are’s ICT experts can focus on supervision and development together with the Enfo service manager.
Are offers three tips on how to choose an IT outsourcing partner:
- Choose a partner that is the right size for you: sufficiently agile, but also capable of producing a comprehensive service package with high quality.
- Make sure that the supplier is genuinely interested in you in particular. For example, at Are, one of the criteria in the tendering was that we would be one of the supplier’s ten most important customers.
- Even with long-term partners, it is good to sometimes think through one’s needs from the beginning and start building the service with a clean slate – just like for a new customer. This ensures that the package meets the current needs, and rationalizing the services also brings cost savings.
Benefits of IT outsourcing and cooperation:
- Comprehensive service: An expert partner takes care of the implementation and maintenance of the IT package, which means that Are can focus its resources on development.
- The everyday work goes smoothly, when the basic IT services and systems work reliably and ensure that Are has agile processes at its disposal.
- IT outsourcing implemented with the right partner saves costs.
- The indicators and targets agreed together guarantee high-quality service.
Founded in Finland, Are is a family-owned company with over a hundred years of experience in building services. Are provides solutions and services for the entire life cycle of a property, from the building services contracting of new buildings to the maintenance, modernization and renovation of existing ones.
Interested? Our customer and end-user satisfaction verifiably exceeds industry benchmarks, and the quality of our services is guaranteed by the ISO 9001 certificate. Read more about our service center, capacity and LAN services, or leave us a contact request so we can discuss more about what kinds of solutions we can offer to support your business.
