Smartdesc

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of finance and operations at the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organizations (ACEVO), a nonprofit membership organization. We help the chief executives of charitable organizations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Smartdesc?

We needed help transitioning from an old tech environment to a cloud-based tech environment.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before the project began, we had a tendering exercise so we were able to provide Smartdesc with a brief outlining our objectives when they came on board. The team guided us through the transition from our old environment to Office 365. Within that, they helped us purchase new technology kits, like laptops and other necessary items to run efficiently.

They’re currently engaged on an ongoing IT support contract.

What is the team composition?

We initially worked with two people: a customer strategy director and a project manager. As we moved on, we also worked with technical engineers and more project staff to help with implementation.

How did you come to work with Smartdesc?

We invited four companies from an approved supplier list for charities to put forward their proposals. Smartdesc won the bid given the quality of their solution and cost. 

How much have you invested with them?

The migration project cost roughly £12,000 (approximately $15,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We put out the tender in July 2019, and by August, we’d selected Smartdesc. Then, we put the project on hold due to some underlying circumstances, but we still worked together in terms of project management and timeframes before beginning the actual implementation in January 2020.

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

After the implementation, our remote work has been 100% successful, which is what we truly needed from the project. There’s been a significant improvement compared to our previous supplier, not just in terms of the technology, but also in terms of customer service. Smartdesc is very responsive and professional, and the feedback throughout my team on their support and training has been positive.

How did Smartdesc perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve performed very well. The team is professional and communicative. They implemented a really strong structure to the whole process of implementation. We’re very satisfied.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most noteworthy thing about working with them is their ability to fix problems. Anytime we came across a slight barrier, it was never an issue to Smartdesc — they always managed to find a solution or a workaround. As a company without a dedicated IT staff, that’s been a huge, positive thing. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s a very minimal amount of things that could’ve been done differently in our eyes. They met all of our expectations. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

One of the things we benefited from was having clarity of scope of the project. It made it really easy for Smartdesc to understand exactly what we wanted, so there was no confusion about what we wanted the outcome to be.