In the fast paced world of technology delivery, we often only look forward to the next piece of the puzzle we need to help our clients take their next steps in their growth strategy. As a mid-sized IT firm, nearly all our recommendations are also implemented within our own business so we can ‘eat our own dog food’ and continue the journey with our clients well after their initial project.
As such, over the last few months AfterDark’s Solution Stack has *really* been put to the test. Here are the 5 Key IT & Related Systems and key points we’ve depended upon to ensure both continuity and continued high levels of customer service during Corona for us internally and our clients:
#1 Cloud-based Business Continuity Documentation
- Providing clear direction to our leadership team for business continuity and communications to all staff
- Delivering assurances to clients and suppliers as they requested this information for their own records
- Delivery of COVID-19 Remote Readiness Surveys to our clients
#2 Microsoft Teams: Instant Messaging and Video Conferencing
- Keeping our regular weekly sales, projects and service meetings going
- Holding a Friday Afternoon Meeting for all staff to pop in to ask any questions directly to the CEO
- Keeping internal communications from clogging up our e-mail
#3 3CX: Phone System
- Allowed our staff to continue full service desk operations for clients using their mobile phones and home computers
- Added a backup Conferencing solution to MS Teams
#4 Employment Hero: HR System
- Cloud based HR access with timesheeting system
- Policy management with electronic signatures (great for rolling out changing Work from Home and COVID-19 advice)
- Provides self-service to our staff and access to our Work from Home policies (in real-time as they evolved)
- Links to emerging external resources for COVID-19 such as mental health and financial support
#5 FortiGate Firewalls: Security, Monitoring and VPN
- Providing traditional remote access to any non-cloud services
- Confidence our data is kept within approved repositories eg No dropbox etc
- Ongoing compliance checking (Antivirus, Patching etc) with company devices no matter their location
And finally, while it’s been important to have all the tools to work remotely, it has really come down to the culture of our people to see us successfully through. This includes everyone:
- maintaining a customer first attitude,
- working unsupervised,
- clearly understanding KPIs and their importance,
- always acting and communicating with a high degree of emotional intelligence
.. all while dogs bark in the background and family members vie for a little extra attention during the work hours.
If you’d like to know any more about these services – many of which are running freely available promotions during this time (including our own Remote Readiness Audit), please call Stephen Gibson on 1300 55 3101 to discuss.
