Arcelor Construction UK Ltd, formerly known as Haironville TAC, is a leading UK manufacturer offering a wide range of products and systems for the roofing and cladding industry. Arcelor has relied on Servo for the past two years with a fully responsive Managed Service for all its IT hardware and software systems. Servo’s ability to deliver services that continue to exceed customer expectations has ensured that Arcelor renew its Managed Services commitment for a further two years.
Peace of mind
To meet the evolving needs of the construction industry, Arcelor has its own dedicated sales, technical and administrative personnel. Around 30 staff are based at the single site headquarters in St Helens, with a further 15 working remotely. Unable to justify the overhead costs of a full-time IT person in-house, Arcelor needed external support to help maintain its business critical IT infrastructure.
Arcelor has a good working relationship with Servo, who has provided different levels of IT support for many years. With no in-house IT specialist to rely on, Arcelor needed the piece of mind that all IT hardware and software systems would be supported in the event of any failure. A fully Managed Service was introduced in 2005, providing Arcelor with a local service, backed-up with its strong national infrastructure.
Martin Henderson, Director of Finance and Administration at Arcelor said, “IT is ultimately my responsibility and I needed the type of support I would have if we had an IT manager. I wanted a simple process, a ‘one-stop shop’ type operation, providing us with efficient service levels at no risk to the company’s operations. The Managed Service with Servo was already in place when I joined Arcelor about twelve months ago. My previous company also had a similar arrangement, however the service they provided was very poor, so understandably I had considerable doubts about relinquishing our IT support to an outside company.
Servo has alleviated all my fears about a Managed Service - they do everything they say they are going to do, and more. We couldn’t justify our own IT person inhouse but I have come to rely upon Brian Charlton, Technical Support Manager at Servo, as my primary IT contact and I am very confident in the service Brian and his team provide.”
A full Managed Service
This confidence in Servo’s support has led to a further two year extension to Arcelor’s fully Managed Service. Servo utilises Service Accent, a modern computerised service management system, controlling its national network of resources. It is this system that enables real-time management of its customer information with automatic escalations prior to service level breaches. The fully Managed Service provides comprehensive support for all Arcelor’s hardware, peripherals and software.
Responsibilities of the service include system administration tasks such as daily back-ups, monitoring system thresholds, anti-virus updates and managing printer faults. Service management functions are also performed, including checking system security and managing all change controls. The critical hardware and software support has Service Level Agreements in place, ensuring an eight hour fix for servers and a next day fix for desktops and peripherals. The Managed Service also includes disaster rebuild of all their standard desktops and servers following a failure. Remote access to all Arcelor’s desktops, laptops and servers ensures that Servo’s technical support centre can monitor maintenance, provide online help diagnostics and manage upgrade and back-up functions. Servo’s locally based field engineers provide further on-site support for hardware failures.
Exceeding expectations
Martin Henderson continues, “With Servo’s Managed Service, our IT functions run smoothly and we can get on with running our business and supporting our customers. Servo is consistently exceeding our expectations. Many of the functions of a Managed Service are reactive - responding to faults and supporting our IT issues for example, but Servo is also very proactive. They are constantly checking our systems and looking for early warning signs before a problem arises. Identifying problems before they happen can save a lot of system downtime which in the long run can save a lot of potentially lost business. Although difficult to quantify, this type of activity is very reassuring and adds considerable value to our Managed Service. Servo has recently taken over the support of our Sales Achiever software at no extra cost to the original contract - another example of the added benefit of working with Servo.
“A Managed Service contract with Servo has enabled us to save on headcount costs whilst receiving an improved level of service. For less than the cost of an internal IT manager, we have a team of people with a whole range of different skills supporting our company. We do not have to worry about keeping up-to-date with new technology or training our staff, Servo takes on that responsibility for us. The Managed Service is a very efficient way for us to manage our IT support. For us, IT is business critical and the Managed Service enables business continuity at all levels. Servo more than meets this demanding expectation, giving Arcelor the confidence to concentrate on its core business.”
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