Prima Passports & Visas Case study
The client When Carlos Claro and his colleagues set up Prima Passports and Visas in the spring of 2013, they were true to their own philosophy: they concentrated on their core business, and farmed out all the essential logistics and support services they needed. Prima helps business clients and tour operators to get the visas they need for travel anywhere in the world saving them a lot of time and hassle. Applying the same low- hassle approach to running their own business, Prima s founders opted for serviced offices, and when it came to organising their IT, they called in Managed Networks. As a start- up, we had had some bad experiences with inadequate IT infrastructure, explains Carlos. We considered buying all our own equipment, but then we would need someone with the expertise to maintain it. We shopped around, and it seemed to us that Managed Networks offered the best and most flexible solution.
What they needed Some of Prima s requirements were simple: they needed PCs Linked to central database Usual email Document tools Prinbng File storage Much of their business comes via their website, and they needed to have technical support available at short notice. All very straightforward, you might have thought. But when they moved to a larger office, they discovered they had a problem. Their internet speeds were not as fast as they had hoped a problem shared with all the other businesses occupying the building and using the same internet connection.
What we did Managed Networks came in and solved the problem by installing a staging server in Prima s offices. This server gives Prima the performance the company needs to move images and blocks of text from one document to another, and send emails to and from embassies and clients at home and abroad, working often to quite tight deadlines. The guy who installed it all for us bent over backwards to help, says Carlos. Within days of moving in, we had everything working perfectly. How we did it There was an additional benefit to the systems that Managed Networks had designed and installed to fit Prima s requirements everything on the Prima staging server would be copied in real time to a data centre, so that in the event of any breakdown or disaster, it would be possible to recover all material within 24 hours. No business continuity worries, then. Carlos s final concern was day- to- day maintenance. Would he and his colleagues be able to get the help they needed at short notice, and would everything continue to work smoothly? So far so good. The account manager has been a pleasure to deal with, says Carlos. The engineers pop in every 2-3 months to check everything. And when we call them to resolve something, they have always done it well within their stated response time.
What the client felt about it As far as Carlos is concerned, a modest increase in running costs is a small price to pay for the efficiency, security and reliability of IT systems his company now enjoys. With the help of Managed Networks, Prima Visas and Passports now has the infrastructure it needs to deliver the services its clients expect. And if business grows, as Carlos hopes it will, Managed Networks will be there to adapt its IT support in whatever way the company needs. Managed Networks do for us what we do for our clients, says Carlos. They take the hassle out of IT management, and give us more time to concentrate on doing what we re best at.