IT Services for Professional Services
Build Reliability and Security into Your IT Infrastructure with All Covered IT Services for Professional Services
Case Study: Aarthun Performance Group
At a Glance
A training services company based in Houston, uses All Covered to support its headquarters as well as dispersed sales and delivery teams. Aarthun Performance Group enjoys peace of mind that its computer systems are well supported and dependable..
The Client
The Houston-based Aarthun Performance Group, founded in 1990 by Jeff and Debi Aarthun, delivers training-based “financial literacy” systems to Fortune 500 companies. The company teaches employees how to improve profit and learn the language of high-level decision makers. Aarthun uses a variety of methodologies to help employees understand their company’s financial drivers, and how they can sell value without sacrificing margin. A customized board game is used to make learning about corporate finance an engaging experience for the participants. Through the knowledge gained, customers’ employees take ownership of the financial impact of their actions and base their decisions and actions on profitability.
Aarthun has 26 employees, 18 of whom work outside of the Houston office, some of them in sales and some traveling around the world delivering training to clients.
The Problem
Bette Gips has responsibility for Aarthun’s office operations and technology, and has been with Aarthun since 1999. When she joined, Aarthun was using an external IT support company, but over the following year or two she became unhappy with the service the company received. She knew Aarthun needed a stronger IT partner to ensure that the company’s computer systems could satisfy the firm’s needs. The remote employees in particular need reliable access to the headquarters file servers and other systems.
Enter All Covered
In 2001, Bette received a recommendation regarding All Covered and, after an evaluation, decided to engage the company for full IT support. Since then, All Covered has supported Aarthun with a mixture of on-site and remote resources. A Citrix based remote network is now in place to allow secure access, together with a Microsoft Small Business Server. All of these systems are remotely monitored 24 hours-a-day by All Covered.
The Results
Bette states that “Working with All Covered has made my job easier. They are very pro-active and address issues quickly, before they start to affect our users. Other employees have told me that when they get phone support from All Covered, the people are very courteous, patient and helpful.”
Aarthun has moved offices twice in the last 5 years, and each time All Covered has worked during the moves to ensure that all the computers were up and running for the employees on following morning. Bette said that the “Remote users were barely aware that we had even moved.” All Covered also helped Aarthun keep its communications with clients open in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in 2008.
Bette states that, ”We knew we didn’t want to hire an internal IT person, not only because of the cost but because we would have to keep training them in new technologies. With All Covered, there is a whole team of experts with all sorts of different skills for us to draw on whenever we need them.”
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“I don’t have to worry about our IT systems. I know they are in good hands with All Covered.” |
