Exigent Technologies

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the office manager at a securities litigation law firm with locations in both New Jersey and New York.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Exigent Technologies?

Our firm opened it's doors in August/September 2020. Exigent was there every step of the way setting up our entire office with our cloud based service. They spent hours making sure we were up and running when our doors opened for business.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Recommendation/word of mouth. Customer service was a key factor.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

Exigent worked tirelessly to set up our IT infrastructure and made sure that it was ready on time for when we opened the doors to our new office in NJ in September 2020. From installing every file from our old firm to our new firm, purchasing everything from computers to network equipment. Once we were ready to open our NY office they copied the same model and made sure our NY office was set up as well.

We use Exigent to manage our IT needs. More recently we did a renovation and needed to move the IT rack from one location to another. This was a large project since all of the wiring and cables need to be rerouted through the ceiling and from the floor below us. The project has been completed. Exigent worked to make sure that our attorneys and office staff only had one day of remote work. They worked after hours, weekends, and quietly while we were in the office.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Exigent is available to us for what seems like "on call" I have never worked with a company that is so available at any time to help. I can send a support ticket and within the hour my issue is solved. If it can't be solved remotely, within an hour someone is walking through our door. I can't say enough good things about the service we receive from Exigent. 5 stars for sure.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Exigent recently did a project for us due to a renovation we were having done in the NJ office. We needed to move the IT rack from one location to another. This was a large project since all of the wiring and cables need to be rerouted through the ceiling and from the floor below us. We had many delays on our end with our renovation and Exigent was accommodating every step of the way, rescheduling their date to start about 4x.

There was no downtime, only one day that we worked remotely so that they could complete the last stage of the work. However, they worked evenings, weekends, and quietly while we worked in the office rerouting the cables so that everything was in place and ready for the actual move of the rack.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

During the move we were in constant contact with Exigent’s team. Calls, in person meetings, zoom, etc. Exigent has always been responsive to our request/issues. I know that within an hour (or less) I will receive help for any issue we are having and they are constantly working behind the scenes monitoring our cloud and call whenever they see something that looks to be an issue.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Having a managed service provider is more cost effective than having a full time IT specialist in the office. Actually, Exigent’s services are like having a fulltime IT employee.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I have no suggestions for improvement. We could not ask for better service.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Carlo's Bakery was the home to reality TV show, Cake Boss. I was the global CIO leading technology (infrastructure, business and retail systems and e-commerce) nationally and globally.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Exigent Technologies?

Exigent was hired to design, install and deliver the core network infrastructure at HQ that would become the foundation for the continued physical expansion. Exigent was also retained to install the extended infrastructure in most all retail locations and then retained on a monthly basis to support and manage the infrastructure.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Reputation and expertise where two of the main characteristics I was looking for in selecting a partner.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We had just completed the build out of a 150,000 SQ FT warehouse and office facility that required core IT infrastructure such as on-prem file server, network switches with a 10g backbone, data back up solution, WiFi and a video surveillance network. Exigent engineers designed the IT racks and installed hardware and wire management and wiring throughout the facility to support 150 connections. Exigent then configured and hardened the network from ground up.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

anywhere from 1-3 resources.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Exigent delivered a reliable and scalable solution that worked.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very efficient.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Knowledge and expertise in addition to the desire to partner and really understand the business and our challenges.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing that comes to mind. Very satisfied and would hire Exigent again.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief development officer of a fast casual food chain.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Exigent Technologies?

We wanted to obtain different tools that could improve the efficiency of our day-to-day communications with franchisees. A specific portal or platform was needed to establish a dedicated line of communication.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re only in the first phase of the process, so I can’t speak to the specific technologies or integrations that will eventually make up the platform. Exigent is collaborating with us to navigate through the initial planning stages and decide on the most streamlined approach possible.

What is the team composition?

We communicate directly with their VP of app development. We finalize decisions together and he conveys that information to his team of 5–7 people. I know there are more people than that working on our project, but we haven’t spoken to everyone at Exigent, so I’m unable to provide an exact number.

How did you come to work with Exigent Technologies?

My team and I researched different software developers and came across Exigent. We heard they built a similar platform for another popular franchise and thought we should give them a shot. We initiated a conversation and were able to establish a relationship. It seemed to be a good fit, so we decided to move forward with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $50,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in March 2017 and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

While still in the early stages of development, we fully expect the finished product to positively impact daily communication between franchisees. The platform will also allow owners to easily track item shipments and receive materials from our corporate headquarters. The increased interaction will strengthen our relationship with each store location.

How did Exigent Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Their ability to communicate has been great so far. If there’s a misstep, they’re open to revising the approach and committing to a different direction. We’ve met multiple times at their headquarters when initially negotiating the project. Now that we’re working through the process, their VP of app development comes to our main office for weekly meetings. It’s definitely a good relationship.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The key factor for me is the ability to communicate with Exigent the way we do. They’re personable and can be reached easily. They’re like an extension of our family. That kind of relationship sets them apart from similar vendors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Considering we’re in the first stage of the project, I don’t have any recommendations for them. They’re hardworking and do their best to accommodate us. I’m proud to have them as part of our team.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be honest and straightforward with what you’re looking to accomplish by engaging them. Clear communication can help avoid mistakes.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT Director for Post, Polak, Goodsell & Strauchler, a medium sized law firm with about 25 attorneys. We are a multi-service firm, providing legal services to commercial, individual, and public sector clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Exigent?

I reached out to them originally because we were seeing so much growth that we couldn’t deal with the security concerns that came with it. I’m basically the entire IT department, and constantly having to train and retrain and look at so many solutions was just too much.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, they only acted as a consultant, but then we moved into managed services when we saw what we were spending on equipment because of its lifecycle, and software in a 24/7 access world. This provided a team of people who were looking at stuff and jumping to help resolve issues. They handled hardware and software renewals, which keeps us up to date, and also did a Microsoft operating system push. They’ve also done all our solutions vetting for a document management system, firewall and antivirus tools, as well as implementing remote access. Finally, they manage our desktop rollouts and our remote access system.

What is the team composition?

We have a dedicated account manager, who I actually worked with when they were at another company, as well as a managed services lead. I’ve also gotten to know some of the technicians that have worked on specific projects for us. In total, we’ve had a core group of 10-12 people that were coordinated work on projects with.

How did you come to work with Exigent?

I knew and had worked with two people who used to work for another company but had since moved to Exigent, so I reached out to them.

How much have you invested with them?

We pay a monthly rate of $6,000 month, and then add in whatever other projects they help us with. Altogether, we’ve spent between $252,000-$288,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since May 2008.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

A number of the items we've taken on with them have kept us from being a victim of malware and ransomware attacks. We deal with a lot of privileged information and confidential materials, and we’ve stayed ahead of the hacking and email phishing, which I attribute to the solutions Exigent has provided and implemented. I’ve been handing over the reins a little on this, but everybody’s been very happy.

How did Exigent perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicate by email, and they often resolve the tickets we send before I can even check them in their customer portal. Everyone I’ve worked with the past few years has been very responsive, so I can't say I've had any issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their technicians have such a wide knowledge base and I’m amazed at how quickly they come up with solutions on the fly, and it doesn’t lead to an exorbitant bill. I haven’t seen that with other companies. We never have to think about downtime because it’s always up; they’re always invisibly there.

Any advice for potential customers?

I would say to utilize the number of services they offer. We initially held back on a few things, just from working with other companies and being afraid of some of the services provided. But Exigent knows a lot more than one might expect. It’s really just trusting in the services that they're offering and then utilizing their Help Desk. I sometimes hesitated to reach out and I wish I had just trusted in the first place, because there’s usually people that've been through it and know the answer to something that I'll spend hours looking into.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of operations for The Center in Ashbury Park. We’re a 25–year–old social service agency that provides assistance for and helps prevent homelessness in the HIV/AIDS community.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Exigent Technologies?

We needed an IT company that could scale with us as we grew and remotely perform technology maintenance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Annually, we will purchase new equipment from them. On a monthly and day–to–day basis they provide us with technical support whether that is a computer virus, an email account not responding, or server maintenance. As issues arise, we contact their local line to submit a ticket request, and we usually receive help within 24 hours.

What is the team composition?

The same person has always helped us with ticket requests, and I’ve worked with five different technicians, all of whom work remotely and respond immediately.

How did you come to work with Exigent Technologies?

Our executive director knew them from previous work and recommended we reach out to them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Exigent October 2007 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

After a power failure in our area, they did research and recommended a new server, which exceeded our expectations of their services. They also look at ways outside of technology to show their support. Exigent has donated several computers to us, as well as participated in our various food drives.

How did Exigent Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

Other than calling with ticket requests, we usually communicate through email and we’ve been very satisfied with that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They will call us once they start the work so that we can log on to their website and watch what they are doing to learn from it. They follow up with another call once they are finished, and we’ve never had to keep them on schedule; they’re very timely. It’s beneficial for us to have someone working remotely because they can provide immediate assistance.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could be more consistent in how they bill. Sometimes a bill will come through the mail, sometimes through email, sometimes they will go directly to our executive director. It would be easier for account purposes if our executive director was sent an invoice every time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Director of Data Service Operations for BITS. We handle infrastructure and technology for community banks across the country.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Exigent Technologies?

We found that technology managers and IT support people tend to move from company to company, so, after 10 years, we couldn’t do our own desktop and server support anymore. We wanted to be more effective to our company, so we needed someone to take over those responsibilities. We hoped this would keep us up to date on the newest technologies, and allow us to focus more on our clients themselves.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Exigent is available from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. as per our contract. They also send our account support engineer to our office twice a month to help us with a new hire, repurpose or reimage laptops, or handle any of our desktop support. Exigent also maintains our twelve critical servers, which they have remote access to so they can address any issues or events that occur, as well as run our monthly server reboot.

What is the team composition?

We mostly work through our frontline call-in person with Exigent, but we also interact with their operational manager as well as their president and CEO.

How did you come to work with Exigent Technologies?

We were looking at three to five different companies and after we narrowed it down to two, our CTO selected Exigent. The personal service of their staff, the expertise of their employees, and their interest in resolving any problem we had all contributed to our decision.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since February 2013, and we recently signed up for another year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They drastically reduced our laptop build time which was taking all day and still not completing. They discovered that there was something going on with Microsoft’s Office 365 platform that they didn’t highly publicize or disclose, but had become a customer satisfaction issue for us internally. They were very diligent about finding where the problem was and relaying it back to us. It was further documented by January of 2017, so we weren’t the only ones feeling this, although we felt like we were. They also discovered a similar problem with our cloud provider that handles our custom applications. That provider had released something that created an interoperability problem when we were building machines, laptops or servers.

How did Exigent Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

They have their own ticketing system and an extensive database where they log every problem. They also aggregate and document all the information from our custom apps, which run in the background of the laptops, to make sure that the next device is an easy build.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They take a long time to hire the right people for their organization. Over the years, there's been a half-dozen key people there that if there's an issue, and they're on the phone with one of our employees trying to resolve something remotely, they don't give up. They don't stop until it's done. They don't even take lunch. I've witnessed calls that last three to four hours, just to maintain that sense of security that they’re there to fix our problem.

Everyone I speak to is the same in their excellence and professionalism, which is remarkable in this day and age. You always think you might hit on somebody that's not interested or engaged, but they’re all completely engaged and involved in any problem, and they look to resolve it as quickly as possible. I can’t imagine doing my work and my responsibilities without having them assist me in day to day operations.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Going forward in our account, I asked that we have on-site meetings twice a year, instead of the once a year we’ve been doing. I think it’s helpful because as things change throughout the year, they may have a new product offering or we may have a new application that we need. That could develop into a couple times, quarterly maybe, but this point I just asked for it to be twice a year.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the controller for Heath Village Retirement Community. We are a not-for-profit retirement community with around 300 staff members. We have about 400 residents who live on our campus in independent settings or with assisted living—most of them start out as independent residents. They live in clusters of apartments spread out over 100 acres, similar to a college campus. We provide skilled nursing and higher levels of care so that people can move here and age in place.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Exigent Technologies?

Aside from ongoing technical support, we also needed to have Wi-Fi installed throughout our facility. We used to have a wired network that was limited to the administration area in the main building. Our nursing staff relies heavily on computers as everything is now electronic, so it’s critical that our network stays up.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They are our outsourced IT department as we don’t have an internal one. Aside from providing ongoing IT services, they also handle projects when needed. For example, they put in the infrastructure for our Wi-Fi network, doing a lot of underground fiber cable installation to connect all of our buildings to the main one. There are about 100 computers on the network, including both desktops and laptops.

Other major projects include server rollouts and relocating our server room. Since we are a healthcare facility, we needed to minimize the downtime, so the relocation took a lot of coordination, engineering, and architecture work. We’ve also rolled out new desktops a couple of times.

What is the team dynamic?

Over time, I have gotten to know most of the techs, who are all good. With certain project work, we would get a project engineer and would only work with that person. The day-to-day technicians are different.

How did you come to work with Exigent Technologies?

We worked with another company who eventually merged with Exigent. We came to know about them through word of mouth.

How much have you invested in them?

Currently, we spend about $5,000 per month. Our Wi-Fi project was close to $500,000, and we spent $100,000 for each of the server and desktop rollouts as well.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been their client for about 10 years now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They have redundancy built into just about everything, which shows that we are a high-priority client.

How did Exigent Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

I appreciate the way they work because when they say something will be done within a specific timeline, they are pretty much spot on. When it comes to managing bigger projects, they have been excellent. They are very thorough. They give us an organized statement of work with all of the details, and it pretty much unfolds the way they say it’s going to. I have never had a project derail. In contrast, I have worked with firms in the past where things were heavily delayed. They are also very responsive, and I honestly couldn’t ask for more in that area.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I am quite amazed by their technical competence. IT services and technology are complicated, and they seem to really know their stuff. Aside from their technical skills, they are people you can get to know and trust. For me, that counts for a lot.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, no.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Estate Planning Law firm. I am the manager.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Exigent Technologies?

Investigating wire fraud.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

They worked with law firm and I like their speedy response.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

They research the email and determine how the fruad email happend.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

One senior IT tech

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I feel we got the answer we want although can’t proceed more because the other party was lack of information.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Great. Efficient.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their fast response time was impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No