Case Study : Geeta’s Food

How I outsource our IT management to keep business in peak condition

– By Nitesh Shah, director of business development at Geeta’s Foods

We are an award-winning, UK-based brand, manufacturing chutneys, cooking sauces, curry pastes and spice mixes that are made from recipes straight from Geeta’s home kitchen. We have manufacturing facilities in the UK and in India.

THE CHALLENGE

As with any business, the smooth running of our IT systems is key to business success. However, like many growing SMEs, we don’t possess the in-house, IT resources that can effectively manage and resolve daily IT issues – or maintain our network. In 2008, we therefore decided to replace our existing IT supplier and outsource the management of all our IT systems to a third party expert.

The key drivers for this move were to improve IT support quality and accelerate incident response times – by no longer having to wait for engineer site visits. We also wanted to reduce overall IT management costs and benefit from the latest technologies to further improve operational efficiencies, continuity and reliability. We understood that by getting these areas right would improve our services – both for staff and externally for customers too.

We chose IT service provider, Zhero (then, Exec-sys). The company was a good choice for us – possessing a proven track record of managing IT infrastructures for SMEs and delivering real value. With its highly responsive, remote support, Zhero promised to ensure the continued availability and higher performance of our IT environment – with a fee structure that suited our focused budget.

THE SOLUTION

I’m pleased to say that for over 10 years, Zhero has proactively managed and supported our entire IT infrastructure that consists of a mixed Microsoft and Apple environment – 24×7. Zhero ensure that our data, devices and network are fully protected and secured with its cloud-based anti-virus and spam filtering services.

Our business continuity is also assured with Zhero’s remote disaster recovery service that delivers regular, automated data backups that are stored in secure locations. In the event of an incident, we know that our data will be swiftly restored and made available for use by our staff. Remote working for staff also became a reality – with server access via a VPN. This has improved workplace flexibility and efficiency – enabling staff to better share information with both our clients and partners too.

You could say that Zhero is our IT department and that it enables our team to focus 100% on running the business. Zhero ensure that we experience a consistently stable and secure technology environment – and with new hardware being integrated into our systems – one that continually operates at an optimum level.

We also have access to Zhero’s deep levels of IT expertise, support and advice – which is great for our staff. Direct access to a helpdesk, has proved invaluable for us too. Zhero are available to answer all our IT and technical problems – with refreshingly quick responses – so IT issues are resolved fast and efficiently. Looking forward, we are also planning to use Zhero to upgrade our server infrastructure to a hybrid-style, network-attached storage environment.

THE RESULT

Overall, using Zhero has significantly enhanced our working efficiencies and given us a cost-effective IT solution. Critically, outsourcing IT has also helped us to wholly focus on and optimise our customer service delivery. Ultimately, Zhero provides a very reliable service – which we would wholeheartedly recommend to others.