Before Zanacore, we had experience with two other IT contractors working with our system. We went the cheap, startup route at first and we were able to negotiate specialized deals based on fee swaps and “introduce me to your friends” pricing. While that was fantastic to start, eventually we saw service levels drop. We also had problems with inexperienced providers as they tended to miss deadlines because they weren’t sufficiently staffed and they were difficult to contact when they were servicing larger customers.
"When we had server issues or key applications down, it was expensive, stressful, and unacceptable."
Then we considered the tradeoff of spending more on direct IT support cost versus the cost of downtime and our lawyers having to deal with IT issues outside our specialty. We realized that fixing something takes far longer than preventing it in the first place and you also have to deal with the side effects in a failure (lost productivity, data, and hair). We knew the additional cost for better proactive support would be justified. We also had confidence Zanacore would perform based on the recommendation we received from Intel’s corporate office and we have certainly been pleased with Zanacore service relative to cost. As an added bonus, we now have happier employees as well.
I found Zanacore’s NetGuard pricing was very competitive when compared like for like service-wise. The pricing we received from other providers would fluctuate automatically based on the number of users or services while your NetGuard model was based more on whether changes were material. Having a fixed monthly price for our support has allowed us to budget better for IT support. We previously used to see big spikes in some months which could cause difficulty with cash flow.
Before we switched to Zanacore we were at severe risk of catastrophic loss because numerous maintenance issues were being neglected.
We weren’t getting security updates installed and our computers were subject to viruses or data breaches. The server wasn’t being updated and backed up properly which was a great concern. Now I sleep better at night knowing our network is safe. I recommend Zanacore NetGuard for any business which is dependent on a reliable and stable data network.
Bob Penman
Sr. Partner
Graham & Penman LLP