Leverage IT Consulting

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Social Entrepreneurs, Inc. is a consulting company with approximately 12 employees. We consider ourselves pretty small, and we focus on nonprofit agencies, nonprofit service providers, and governmental agencies. 

I’m the operations manager in our firm and I do some billable consulting services, but most of my role revolves around making sure internal systems stay up. Overall, I’m connected to the server and technology part of our organization. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Leverage IT Consulting?

As a consulting company, one of the tangible deliverables we provide our clients is our electronic files usually in the form of Excel, PDF, and more. We typically use a lot of those files as tools to complete our project.

Thus, our electronic files are one of the most important assets that we have and we needed a good place to store them in a secure and accessible form — both from inside the office as well as from remote locations.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We needed our electronic files to be maintained in some way to maximize uptime and minimize the risk of failures. We wanted to prevent our files from failing because having no way to restore the data would have a huge impact on our business. As a result, Leverage IT put together a proposal for us to put in a server.

For phase one, we went through a research and discovery phase where the team assessed our needs by checking our company. Then, they came back with a proposed solution. For phase two, the work revolved around the design and build with Leverage IT’s engineers where we talked about the size of the server that needed to be developed. 

Then, the third phase was the server installation. Currently, they have ongoing monitoring, maintenance, and backup efforts on our server. Everything is monitored by the team remotely.

What is the team composition?

They have a team of engineers and technicians that watches our server, but I usually work with three individuals from their team including Eric (Principal) who helps with consulting. 

How did you come to work with Leverage IT Consulting?

My company found Leverage IT way before I worked for Social Entrepreneurs, Inc. — which was about 10 years ago. The main reason why we engaged with them was because of their responsiveness and their expertise in Microsoft. Since we decided that our main OS was going to be Microsoft, they seemed to be a good fit for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $108,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing work began in January 2008.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have any exact metrics, but they've been extremely responsive over the course of our relationship. Leverage IT doesn't only respond when we have a problem; they also make sure that matters get handled right away when we place a call. If that’s not possible, we get an immediate callback from them.

On a regular basis, Eric meets with me, and he doesn’t charge us anything for it. It’s also valuable that he’s the president of the company yet I get to talk directly with him. 

How did Leverage IT Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve done an excellent job on the project management side of things. Since Erik's an expert, it has made us feel comfortable working with Leverage IT despite the fairly complicated process of installations.

Moreover, they’re a professional and communicative company. We’ve been keeping in touch through Zoom, and that has been true even prior to the pandemic. Zoom has always been an efficient way to meet and show our screens when we need to show something. We have had meetings in person, but there haven’t been many as we’ve always conducted our meetings virtually.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The primary thing that strikes me the most is Leverage IT’s reliability. I have never been worried that I won’t get any response from them, and I clearly see that they value their clients. Furthermore, their expertise in Microsoft products has also been noteworthy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t really think of areas they can improve. We’ve had very few problems with our server, but they swiftly resolve things all the time. Overall, they do what they say they’re going to do, and that’s something important when you’re looking for a firm that’s going to support your IT infrastructure.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you’ve decided that you’re going to use the Microsoft suite of products. If that’s the case, you can definitely take advantage of the team’s skills. However, I will caution you if you’re thinking of using a different platform — Leverage IT might not be fit for you.