Vintage IT Services

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Vice President of Operations of BBB Serving the Heart of Texas

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Leader in advancing marketplace trust among the business and consumer communities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

• Collaborate, Ideate, and partner with team for future enhancements.
• Understand the unique demands of employees
• Transition from current ITMSP Provider

SOLUTION

How did you find Vintage IT Services?

Competitive Procurement

Why did you select Vintage IT Services over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Vintage IT Services were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

Transitioning from one IT vendor to another is a strategic move that involves migrating a significant number of employees, often exceeding 100, to a new technology platform. In this case, the transition also encompasses adopting new Microsoft licensing arrangements. Additionally, a crucial aspect of this transition involves educating employees about the new IT environment, its capabilities, and efficient utilization. 

The transition process involves meticulous planning, coordination, and execution to ensure a seamless shift in IT services. Essential components of the transition include assessing the existing IT infrastructure, identifying the requirements and objectives for the new platform, and planning for a smooth migration while minimizing disruptions to daily operations. Once the migration is successfully completed, it's imperative to focus on employee education and training. 

Informing and upskilling employees about the new platform and Microsoft licensing is essential to optimize its usage and enhance productivity. Proper training ensures that employees can leverage the new IT tools and systems effectively. Moreover, as the organization establishes a partnership with the new IT vendor, collaboration and ideation for future projects become integral. 

The vendor becomes a strategic ally in shaping and executing future IT initiatives, fostering innovation, and aligning technology solutions with the organization's evolving needs and goals. This partnership enhances the organization's capacity to ideate, innovate, and implement cutting-edge projects, ultimately driving growth and efficiency in the IT landscape.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The transition deadline was met. We had an unforeseen compliance requirement come up that Vintage responded positively and quickly to. Last, we transitioned with no down time or issues.

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

Exceptional! They delivered on time and on budget.

What was your primary form of communication with Vintage IT Services?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I'm impressed with their culture fit, communication, and openness to share solutions.

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

Nothing

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the COO of a nonprofit organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vintage IT Services?

We hired Vintage IT Services to manage our IT services. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

They provided us with Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Virtual Information Desk (VID) services. They back up our emails, and in general, manage all of our IT services. 

What is the team composition?

I work with three people from Vintage IT Services. 

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

I work very closely with Jason (Client Account Manager) and Steve (Owner).

How did you come to work with Vintage IT Services?

The former CEO of our organization previously worked with the CEO of Vintage IT Services.

How much have you invested in them?

I’m unsure of the exact amount, but we've been paying them a monthly fee since 2007.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Vintage IT Services in 2007, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're able to do our work without any interruptions thanks to the services that Vintage IT Services provides.

How did Vintage IT Services perform from a project management standpoint?

They always stick to deadlines. If any issues arise, we can reach out to their helpdesk.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team at Vintage IT Services always resolves issues quickly and efficiently. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing for them to improve at this time. In the past, we felt there was room for improvement, and they worked with us on that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you are considering working with Vintage IT Services, make sure that the communication is strong from both sides.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a credit union.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vintage IT Services?

We’ve engaged Vintage IT Services to handle all of our computer-related needs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vintage IT Services has guided us through purchasing computers. The team sets up our computers, installs our printers, and runs our server room. They’ve also connected us with a satellite office that we reach out to whenever we have a computer or network-related problem. We can submit a ticket or call the customer service line to walk them through our issue. If they cannot mitigate the issue remotely, they come on-site to provide additional support. 

What is the team composition?

I’ve worked with Steve (Owner) and Nick (IT Manager). 

How did you come to work with Vintage IT Services?

When we moved into our new office, we had to switch service providers, and our former partner referred Vintage IT Services to us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $10,000–$25,0000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve worked with Vintage IT Services since June 2016, and the partnership is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Vintage IT Services addresses service requests promptly. When we submit a ticket, they typically resolve it within the same day, often within the same hour. We’ve continued using their services for years, and I couldn’t imagine changing providers. 

The level of service they provide is unparalleled. The team calls to make sure we’re satisfied with our computers. Furthermore, Steve visits our office periodically to check on things and ensure we’re happy. They’re very concerned about whether our employees are pleased with the service, and they are. Our jobs are spent on computers, so we want to feel like we have the best service, and Vintage IT Services provides that. 

How did Vintage IT Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Nick is excellent and has helped us a lot throughout the years. Additionally, we’ve never had a problem with their on-call staff. We have direct access to our account representative, who I can depend on to walk us through troubleshooting processes. The representative not only addresses tickets but also follows up with us to ensure everything meets our standards. 

We’re a small credit union, and they’ve always bent over backward to provide the best possible service for our dollars. Moreover, they always consider our budget. For example, at the beginning of the engagement, they replaced 90% of our computers. We had ongoing budget discussions throughout that process, and they never made a move without running it by us first. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like their ticketing system and that I can reach my representative directly whenever I need them. Vintage IT Services does everything we ask; they’re one of the best companies I’ve ever worked with. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing they could improve on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the executive director of a nonprofit educational organization. We provide mentoring and academic tutoring to students in the Austin Independent School District.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vintage IT Services?

We needed IT support to keep our organizational functions running smoothly and provide us with necessary updates. We also needed help fixing issues whenever problems came up with our equipment and software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vintage IT Services has acted as our ongoing IT provider for more than 10 years and has provided assistance across various projects. We recently migrated to Microsoft Office 365 Cloud, and they provided support with that. 

What is the team composition?

Our needs vary based on the projects that we are working on. We usually work with 2–3 technical support individuals, and we connect with Jason (Client Account Manager) every so often depending on our needs.

How did you come to work with Vintage IT Services?

I can’t remember because we’ve been working together for so long. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2014, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We feel like the partnership has been effective, and this is demonstrated by how long we’ve been working with them. 

How did Vintage IT Services perform from a project management standpoint?

In general, we feel like they’ve had good project management. We primarily communicate through email and phone calls, and we submit work order tickets. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a great reputation and have won multiple awards. They’re also local, and give us a great discount because we're a nonprofit partner. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There have been occasions when we wish they had a quicker response time, and there have been times when projects have been more expensive than we originally anticipated. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a locally owned and operated real estate company in Austin, Texas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vintage IT Services?

Their particular services are different every day, but our goal is to grow our revenue and brand footprint here in Austin.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of their services is supporting our operations as we open new offices, streamlining our technology and hardware needs in those places. We meet monthly to build out our strategic plan, sometimes looking as far forward as six months or even a year. When we decide to open a new office, they’ll perform a field survey to determine what kind of equipment we need regarding data cabling, phone service, and more. Vintage IT will also communicate with our other vendors and manage those fulfillment and configuration processes. When it comes time for installation, Vintage IT will send someone on-site to set up and test everything in our new office.

In terms of day-to-day services, we run a virtual desktop system, so they ensure all our users have access and fix bugs and issues as they come up.

What is the team composition?

We have an assigned account manager that we typically work through; his name is Shane (Network Administrator), and we have a great relationship. On the customer service side, we work with a few technicians and other resources, including an escalation contact for larger issues.

How did you come to work with Vintage IT Services?

As far as our IT infrastructure, we wanted to partner with small, local company that shared our values. Another important aspect to our engagements are solid collaboration and constantly being on the same page as one another. We wanted a partner to grow together.

In terms of the actual connection point, our CEO used to work with them when he was at a previous position. When it came time to move away from our initial vendor, he recommended Vintage IT as a possibility. After interviewing them, it was clear that they would fit well with us.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost is around $100,000 so far, including both our one-off projects and our monthly fees.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After opening a number of new locations together, it’s like we run on autopilot when it’s time for another one; and I mean that with a positive connotation.

We’re a smaller business, so we don’t track a lot of precise analytics, but I can say that our network is much more stable than it was before Vintage IT came on board. Our ticket counts have also gone way down, and our tup-time is better. We’re running a very efficient tech operation right now. Shane and I are very proactive; we try to look ahead and identify potential issues to make our structure even more solid.

How did Vintage IT Services perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s inevitable that you’ll run into a few pitfalls while doing any larger project, whether they be with back-ordered equipment with a construction company, so the real mark of success is building an effective relationship and collaboration. The best benefit of our relationship is the knowledge that I can pick up the phone and talk with someone who can help solve my problem whenever I need.

Shane is my go-to for collaborating on solutions. Vintage IT has a lot of resources that we can access to brainstorm with.

In terms of collaboration tools, they have a ticketing system we use; Vintage IT does a great job of escalating the proper tickets and addressing them quickly. I have great access to everyone in their IT department.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We love their combination of supportive IT infrastructure professionals and personalized, accessible communication.

Vintage IT also has highly skilled people. They retain talent in their core groups; it’s nice to have been able to build relationships with many people in their company, as we’ve worked with the same people from the beginning. When I call in, they always ask me about my day; I’m not just a client on their page. IT professionals are not always known for their customer service and customer-facing attitude. Vintage IT never makes me feel stupid for the questions I ask

Are there any areas they could improve?

Right now, we’re super happy with them. At the beginning, however, we had to request that they assign an account manager. Now that we have someone we can call whenever we have an issue, it’s been smooth sailing for us. Nothing really sticks out.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The Sun City Texas Community Association is a large-scale homeowners' association based in Georgetown, Texas. We currently have over 7,500 homes on the ground and will expand to 10,000. We also offer a wide variety of fitness and recreational facilities. We're more of a resort than a standard homeowner's association (HOA). I wear two hats, serving as the community standards director and the IT director. All the networking and telecom stuff belongs to me, although we have a managed-service provider for copiers. We have 225 employees.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Vintage IT?

The association used to be a part of a larger housing consortium, but one of the smart people in charge figured out that we were the only HOA in the organization, so they spun us off. As part of that, we were required to get our own IT support, since we would not be getting it from the organization anymore.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Vintage IT was initially tasked with reviewing the architecture of our network so that we'd know where we stood. The former parent company threw us the keys to the door, but we didn't know anything about how switch architecture was setup, which places were connected through fiber, and which ones had coax. Vintage IT bottom-lined everything from the standpoint of our equipment, and detailed what we'd need to do and the investments we'd need to make. We pressed forward based on their information.

We have an annual $50,000 check-refresh for the 125+ computers in our network. I told Vintage IT what I was looking for, and they came back with some recommendations. I would pick one, tell them how many of each kind to buy, and Vintage IT would take care of everything else, including sourcing, delivery, and setup. They make sure that everything works, and that everyone is up and running. If we have a warranty problem or another issue, Vintage IT will take care of it.

They also manage our software licenses, updates, and patches. When it comes to the security aspect, we are dealing with a separate company that helps us with cyber and physical security.

We make backups on site, over different locations. We do it through a couple of 10TB Buffalo DriveStation units on three locations. Vintage IT also makes a copy of daily data and keeps it in their data foundry in case our stuff fails.

We have a separate company in charge of telecoms. Some of my locations are carried over the IT network, and Vintage IT has worked hand in hand with separate contractors when we needed to get some stuff done. There were a couple of remote locations where the local telephone company couldn't offer support, but Vintage IT was able to install VoIP units. This can be a challenge to fine-tune since data and voice are different beasts, but Vintage IT resolved the problem proactively, and let me know afterward.

How did you come to work with Vintage IT?

We put out a request for proposals and got responses from 14-16 companies. Five or six of them actually followed the format, while the rest deselected themselves by default. We went through some interviews, talked to a bunch of clients from those companies, and liked Vintage IT the best. They had some of their people come out and validate the information we provided in the RFP in order to get a feel for the place and see what was going on. Only one other company did that, and they were quite perfunctory. The people from Vintage IT wanted to have a better understanding of who we were, what we were doing and how. They didn't see us as only one more potential source of revenue.

How much have you invested with Vintage IT?

We have a managed-services contract for 155 computers, with $22 per machine, per month. We also run individual projects as needed. Our fare is for remote work, and if Vintage IT's team needs to come on site to work out an issue, the cost will depend on how many technicians are used, and for how long. Our monthly bill is around $9,000, so the overall budget is around $110,000 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Vintage IT seven or eight years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We receive a monthly report, mainly around patches, updates, that sort of thing. I don't have any metrics off the top of my head, but I know that Vintage IT will typically handle 100 to 150 email or phone helpdesk issues per month from our local staff.

Unless there's a hardware issue that requires Vintage IT to come on-site, most things are resolved via the phone on the same day. We have worked on some long-haul projects as well, dealing with problems with an accounting software vendor for our clubs. Most of the time, Vintage IT will require no more than 48-72 hours for any issue, with 80% of them being resolved on the same day.

How did Vintage IT perform from a project management standpoint?

In the early days, when we were still figuring out what we had inherited from our parent company, we had multiple meetings with Vintage IT's lead technician and head architecture people, collaborating on coming up with a joint vision for what the infrastructure should be. In an earlier life, I was involved in the Air Force's intelligence, surveillance, and recognizance center, so I'm familiar with computers and other tech items. We were able to collaborate and come up with a consolidated roadmap. It took us four years to get from where we were to where we are now, and it involved numerous tweaks and upgrades to our older hardware.

Let me give you an example of how they work. Vintage IT saw the opportunity to become a good steward of our company's money, and they took it. They went out when we bought some new servers from Dell EMC, and used their own money for the units. We had a drop-dead date from their salesman for placing the order, and I didn't have the money right then, given that we were at the end of the financial year, and our books were pretty much closed. Vintage IT did this, knowing that we would be buying back the hardware from them in January. It was a sweet gesture, and it saved us around $15,000. They only required an email for me for approval.

What did you find most impressive about Vintage IT?

Vintage IT took ownership of our infrastructure. They feel responsible for us; they know that we don't have the internal capabilities for doing everything we need, and, when we have issues like critters gnawing through our fiber-optic cable, they'll source and coordinate with any other provider and work on it. I couldn't go looking for a fiber-optics company in the Yellow Pages, so their help was important.

Are there any areas Vintage IT could improve?

Some of Vintage IT's technicians can be scruffy, professionally-speaking. As someone who has spent 32 years in the military, I have higher expectations from vendors. This is the civilian IT world and it can be hard to know what people look like on the other side of the phone when they're remotely accessing a computer.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Vintage IT?

Don't even bother reading the other RFPs unless it's a necessary procedure. Vintage IT should be a shoo-in for any company.