Ripple IT

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the COO of TSWII. We’re a financial services company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ripple IT?

We brought them on to handle our managed IT services. They would essentially be taking those duties off of my shoulders because I had formerly been handling all of the IT for our company.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They handle our general managed IT services, and we’ve had different one-off projects. They migrated us from our local server to a cloud provider. They’ve also migrated our email services from one provider to another. Their team assists us with our cybersecurity, upgrades, as well as provides additional resources to strengthen our cybersecurity processes and infrastructure.

They handle our individual pieces of equipment and computers by getting those onboarded and secured. I work with an account representative who assists us in troubleshooting efforts or communications with the internal staff. We also have a senior technician who helps on individual projects. Occasionally, he assists on various things.

What is the team composition?

I work with our account representative and a senior technician. There are several others who are the on-call techs who assist us when we call.

How did you come to work with Ripple IT?

We only run Apple computers and systems, and we’re a very small firm. Finding a managed IT partner who would take our account and could meet both of those needs was difficult. One of Ripple IT’s competitors recommended us to them. They thought we’d be a good fit. We were immediately impressed so it was an easy decision.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested between $50,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing engagement started in December 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

All the projects they do have a successful outcome. They’ve consistently met our goals. Their team provides excellent customer service for our ongoing needs. They’re available, timely, and resolve our issues. Ripple IT is a great partner to work with.

How did Ripple IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve only had one project with a hard and fast deadline, and they met it. Most of the time, it’s pretty flexible because everything is a process we knew would take some time to work through.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their customer service is the best thing. Ripple IT has a good system in which they respond and let us know they received our inquiry and are assigning a technician to our case. They’re usually able to set out a reasonable timeframe. I appreciate our account representative's follow-up with us. He proactively reaches out to help us plan — that’s rare from what I’ve seen.

In our four years together, there’s only been one instance where we had a miscommunication. We went to him and set up a conversation to cure that. They did everything we could ask for in terms of making that situation clearer. They cured that hiccup within a very reasonable amount of time and ensured we were happy.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’d be great if they opened an office where we are. All their services are done remotely. They’re willing to come up here if needed but we haven’t needed it. If they increased their footprint and opened an office here that’d be wonderful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication from the beginning is very important. Scope out exactly what you expect. Maintain those lines of communication so everything is clear on the frontend.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a nonprofit theater that’s been around since 1929. As a nonprofit, we’ve existed since 1974. Our purpose is to maintain this very iconic, beautiful theater and share wonderful experiences with the rest of the world. Since March 2020 and the global pandemic, we’ve paused performances. I’m the CFO.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ripple IT?

This is the ninth nonprofit organization I’ve served as the CFO. In my experience, hiring an IT individual is not as effective as hiring a firm. It may be cheaper, but an individual IT employee is going to have to be a superstar to make things work. They have to know everything about software, networking, internet security, and more. Eventually, an individual IT person is going to go on vacation or leave the company as well. 

We were dealing with these issues in IT individuals that weren’t exactly superstars anyway, so we wanted to bring on a firm to take on IT services. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re our managed IT provider, so they handled any and all tasks that have to do with our IT systems. That includes infrastructure responsibilities, making sure our systems function, evaluating security, and ensuring systems are backed up. 

Once, we had a rather complicated situation with our phone vendors. They helped us untangle that and save us money. Another time, they facilitated major renovations with our displays and monitors all around the theater. We also have a major rewiring project that they finished about a year ago. They’ve helped us in tons of specific situations.   

What is the team composition?

We have a main point of contact with their team for organizational strategy. It’s also a bit of a unique arrangement because we have one of their team members on-site all the time. So, that individual serves as another main point of contact.  

How did you come to work with Ripple IT?

I’ve worked with them on IT services for a different organization in the past. We interviewed three possible IT firms, and they came out on top. I was already comfortable with them because they’d been good business partners in the past. They also communicate about IT topics well in plain English, so I’ve always appreciated that.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $1 million with them.  

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since June 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Especially moving into remote work during the pandemic, having a robust infrastructure with backups has really helped us. I haven’t dealt with any complaints about IT from our staff. Staff members aren’t coming to me with computer troubles or any other IT issues. It’s helpful to me to not have to deal with those issues, and I haven’t needed to step in since the start of our engagement with them. 

How did Ripple IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very good with communications. I speak to our on-site team member every day and check-in with our point person on a weekly basis. Deadlines are met with no problem. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a good business partner. They make proactive suggestions on how to aid the business that we haven’t even considered because they know our business so well. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m a critical person, but I haven’t found anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

As quickly as possible, get them knowledgeable about your business. In our case, they’d worked with us before with similar organizations and were already familiar. Whatever your industry, consider what’s unique about your business to get them up and running as fast as possible.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of IT for a title and escrow company, OS National.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ripple IT?

We had multiple challenges but primarily, they were system stability, performance, and security.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ripple established FortiGate Firewalls and VeloCloud at every office location. For email security, their team rolled out Mimecast. Their team also transferred our phone systems to Vonage. They managed our huge migration from a datacenter to Microsoft Azure. We also rolled out Duo for security purposes. Their team still manages our IT requirements, working on and off-site.

What is the team composition?

One of their senior technicians came on-site and configured the applications and firewalls. We remotely worked with a project manager and senior technician for the Duo and Mimecast implementations and the Azure migration. The team composition depends on the project’s size.

How did you come to work with Ripple IT?

I had a long-standing relationship with them that extends almost 10 years. I brought them on board at three additional companies before I was in my current position.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent north of $250,000 at this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started around March 2019, and we’re still utilizing their services for specific tasks and projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We reduced our downtime to zero. Since rolling out our firewall solution, we haven’t had any outages at offices. We haven’t had a single successful phishing attempt after employing Mimecast. We also reduced our spam and malware emails by over 60%. By rolling out Vonage, we haven’t had any phone outages. Our performance and stability drastically improved, so our customer satisfaction rating is 4/4.

How did Ripple IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We have weekly meetings about upcoming tasks for projects. The cadence depends on the project’s phase. For our previous projects, we met with a project manager, a senior technician, and 1–2 people on my team.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m impressed by their ability to complete projects on time and on budget.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they’re fantastic.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you value IT, you should definitely consider Ripple. If you’re just looking for a cheap and quick solution, Ripple may not be a good fit. They’re not the cheapest option but their team does fantastic work that’s worth the money.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT support manager for Plaid Enterprises, a paint manufacturing company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ripple IT?

We needed network support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provide extensive levels of network support including after-hours help on a range of technical issues we've experienced. Our organization was about 350 employees when we engaged them, and we’re now up to 800 employees. We've grown quite a bit. Ripple IT helped set up the network at all three of our facilities.

For one of our major projects, we had a holding company that wanted us to do an audit on ourselves. We did and we were quite vulnerable to threats. Ripple IT provided associated fixes. It was the largest project I've seen here. We had holes throughout the network, several accounts that shouldn’t be used, backdoors that were open, and outdated switches.

To meet that goal, Ripple IT set up the layout and step-by-step process we went through to satisfy the holding company. When we submitted the document of all the things we’d done to secure the infrastructure here, we never even got a call back. The holding company was satisfied with the report and what we had done. We had to buy quite a bit of hardware, which was expensive because we didn't realize we had so many holes in our network. 

Due to our growing user database, we had a need for storage. The more storage we get, the more storage users need. They've been there to implement those upgrades and help us with problems whenever we have them.

For instance, I recently came into the office at 3:00 in the morning because the main backbone switch went out. Ripple IT picked up the phone when I called. We needed to replace our backbone switch. One person stayed up all night with me to fix it. My company is very. proactive, but when a fire goes off, I need someone to assist. Ripple IT has been there every step of the way.

We’re now moving into a new facility, so I requested them to examine the space to see what we need for our network. In that particular project, we’re moving from 75,000 square feet to a building that’s 198,000 square feet. Once we get the final quote, I’ll be working with them to implement the plan.

What is the team composition?

In-person, I’ve worked with Jayesh (CTO), Curt (Senior System Architect), and Andres (Senior Systems Engineer). There's a larger team that addresses tickets, but I don't know the names of those individuals.

Lately, I’m in most regular contact with Curt. He comes on-site and addresses issues, while Jayesh will do high-level walkthroughs when we move into a new facility, for example. 

How did you come to work with Ripple IT?

We have AS400 in our environment, and it wasn’t going over ethernet because of dated protocols. The person we found to help us couldn’t make the differences we needed. The sales engineer there recommended their team. He gave him my number, and Jayesh called me.

I’ve never known someone with such a big brain. When Jayesh visited initially, it was like he was walking on water. He conveyed information about how he was going to approach the process. Our footprint was small and we hadn't paid them a lot of money, but he treated me as though we were one of his best customers.

He’s high up in the company, but he’d be the one to call me back when I needed him. Since I could assist in a lot of ways, he’d throw me a bone that I could run with without starting the clock on his team. The more he did that, the more I knew that this is the kind of company I wanted to work with. I wasn’t being billed for every little thing.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent about $1 million. We likely spent about $325,000 on the audit project alone.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2013, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I was a one-man shop for over four years. I didn’t think I was going to make it because there were crises constantly. The reason I’m as successful as I am now is because of Ripple IT. There’s no question about it.

They've faced obstacles that my company would've needed to hire multiple people to overcome. Ripple IT was our added employee without being on the payroll. They’d offer me information that would help me solve an issue and make me shine. I’d get the credit, and we didn’t have to pay for that extra information. My knowledge levels have grown off the charts because of them. I was promoted from a support person to IT manager, in part because of the expertise that Ripple IT provided to me with.

We’ve benefited tremendously since working with them. When I first started here, we weren’t in a client-server environment. It was stand-alone workstations, Windows 95, and Windows XP. We’ve grown leaps and bounds for the nine years I’ve been here. A lot of the credit goes to Ripple IT.

How did Ripple IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management exceeds all expectations. Since we’re operating 24 hours each day, I can’t wait for solutions. If something happens, I need support right away. I open tickets with them because that's their process, but I'll call if there's a crisis.

Calling them directly helps me put a feeler out to see if they have any ideas as to what's wrong. No matter when I call them, right on the spot, I get a call back. There’s a confidence in knowing if I call, I’m going to get the help. I even wrote a letter to Ripple IT praising their teammates that helped because those guys are definitely top-notch and know their stuff.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have in-depth knowledge of their industry. I call Jayesh "the brain." We're shocked that they serve so many clients but still grow to understand our network so intimately. He doesn’t forget anything. When it comes to IT, they've seen it all before. They're never just winging it.

When we have projects, I want to work with Ripple IT. They know our network intimately because they helped me put it in place. Even when I didn’t go with them on certain things, they were still willing to give me some key data to make sounds decisions. I always feel Ripple IT is part of the equation, even when they aren't.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I deal with Jayesh and Curt more than anyone else. I don’t know the size of the organization in terms of the number of employees. I hope the rest of their team is just as knowledgeable as they are. That's not a negative, though.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president and co-founder of Matchstic. We do brand identity work.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ripple IT?

We hired Ripple to be our outsourced IT provider, managing all the inner workings of our computers and anything IT-related.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Ripple handles all of our IT matters. This includes our internet and WiFi, telephone system, servers, computers, and wiring within our office. When we moved offices, they handled all of our technology in terms of packing and then setting up the new space. Ripple is over anything that’s connected to a computer or communication device and ensures they’re consistently up and running.

Their team fixes and resolves hardware and software issues as they arise. They also look forward and think about where we’re going as a business and what our technology needs will be. Ripple looks to the future and plans so we can be ready as our company continues to grow.

What is the team composition?

We work with an account lead.

How did you come to work with Ripple IT?

I met Ripple’s owner through a mutual friend. Our company didn’t have an outsourced IT company because we were pretty small. As we grew, it made sense to have a company that helped us in this regard. We chose them because there was a lot of synergy and alignment between our two companies and culture. It felt and make sense to work together.

How much have you invested with them?

We invest between $40,000–$45,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our ongoing partnership began in 2009.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Ripple’s team is full of fabulous people. Often times, IT people care more about computers than the people they work with; but Ripple doesn’t do this. They do a great job of understanding what purpose technology serves and thinking about that reason in a larger landscape.

We have quarterly review meetings where they come in and find out what we need, discuss issues, and think ahead for future matters. Ripple is very proactive and stays ahead of where we’re at, so we never fall behind.

How did Ripple IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We work with a ticketing system, and they’re quick and responsive to handling issues that pop up. Our account lead keeps us engaged and up-to-speed on the status and progress of projects. Ripple has an internal project management tool that speaks to their ability to stay on track and get things done.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The Ripple team members are just good people. They’re genuine, personable, and have a humanity to them that isn’t always common in the IT space. I really appreciate this about them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there are no areas for improvement. This is not to say that we haven’t had little issues over the years. To me, it’s less about whether there is an issue and more about how they respond when there is. Ripple has been super responsive so nothing comes to mind. We’ve addressed things in the past; and they’ve always listened very well, cared, and responded quickly.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to constantly ask for their advice on ideas. Sometimes they can be shy about recommending new solutions, so I’m always trying to pull that out of them. They have great ideas so encourage them to give you their perspective.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Holcombe Financial.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Ripple IT?

I didn’t feel like our organization was utilizing all of the technology that was available to us. Our previous IT providers were not very proactive in keeping us on the cutting edge, so we wanted to find someone who could really elevate our use of the most current technologies in our sector.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They pretty much handle any support issues that we have here, from setting up new elements of our digital infrastructure to tackling any issues that our team members run into throughout the day.

When we transitioned our team to working remotely, they helped us get all of our infrastructure set up at everybody’s houses so that we could smoothly make that transition.

What is the team composition?

Max (Support Coordinator) is our main point of contact, so whenever we email them, she is the one coordinating those requests to whoever is available and has specific knowledge on the issue. In total, I think we’ve worked with about 5 members of their team over the years.

How did you come to work with Ripple IT?

I was referred to them by another business owner. We interviewed them and it went well, so we decided to work with them.

How much have you invested with them?

Between monthly invoicing and one-off projects such as replacing our PCs, we’ve spent about $200,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in 2014 and are continuing to partner together.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I get no complaints from my team, which means that everything is working. On the rare occasion that something does break, they are incredibly responsive and efficient in getting it fixed, which allows me to focus on my business.

How did Ripple IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They do a great job of managing their work with us. I get no complaints, so that means that they are taking care of all the issues my team is having, which is exactly what I want them to do. We communicate via phone on a weekly basis, but they come over whenever anything needs to be done on-site.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most valuable part of the engagement for me is the ability to focus on my work and not have to worry about issues I don’t know how to fix, and their team delivers that completely.

We’ve heard about other firms that offer this service, but we’ve never heard about a positive experience with one of those firms outside of Ripple. They have really good, experienced people who have stayed with their company for a long time.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I guess everyone can improve something, but with them, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They usually come to me when I need to think about things, not the other way around, so I really think just about anybody can be successful working with them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive at EchoSpan

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

SaaS HR software

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Ripple IT to accomplish?

• Manage servers

SOLUTION

How did you find Ripple IT?

Referral

Why did you select Ripple IT over others?

• High ratings
• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Ripple IT were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Management of production web infrastructure

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Servers up and running, network optimized, ongoing support

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes. Ripple generally does very well at supporting us. We have a few outstanding gremlins but am confident they'll be addressed. We have been distracted with other business tasks, so have been slow to address them ourselves.

What was your primary form of communication with Ripple IT?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They share our views on the importance of the customer.

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

Firewall implementation was difficult. Had a few instances of downtime. But understandable given complexity of environment.