Johannesburg, 05 Nov 2013
When the IT department of Babcock, a leading supplier of engineering support services to the energy, process, mining and construction industries, and the exclusive regional distributor for many leading international brands and products in southern Africa, became bogged down in the day-to-day operations of IT management, issue resolution and troubleshooting, it turned to technology to find a suitable solution.
Babcock has a national footprint of 38 branches nationwide, with approximately 700 machines that run Microsoft, which the internal IT department looks after, explains Corn'e Els, systems manager at Babcock. "To manage the entire corporate network and administer this environment, we have a staff complement of 13, which includes seven technicians, one procurement employee, a VIP IT manager who supports the executive team, a solutions architect, an IT service delivery manager, the group IT director and myself," he continues.
Els and his colleagues had their hands full merely keeping up with software upgrades and hardware maintenance. "This meant we were being completely reactive with the maintenance of our IT environment, which, over time, can lead to serious issues," says Els. "We were also spending an inordinate amount of money on travel to send technicians to offices located around the country to perform routine maintenance and updates."
According to Els, his team needed to become more proactive to ensure the company's IT environment continued to run smoothly, as IT is the operational lifeblood of this multinational organisation. "One of our contractors actually recommended that we investigate Kaseya, as the solution offered all the functionality and ease of use we were after."
"A cold call from our sales team coincided with Babcock's investigations, and we soon set up a demo of our solution for Els," explains Paul Scofield, regional sales manager at Kaseya. "While he already had a fair idea of what our solution offered, it was the automation capabilities that really sold him, as this functionality would allow him and his team to be more proactive in terms of their IT management."
Says Els: "We also looked at another vendor's solution before committing, but it was extremely resource intensive. Kaseya was also a lot easier to work with, and the automation and patch management capabilities of the solution enabled us to consolidate our IT management. The solution also gave us greater visibility into our network for enhanced IT asset management," he continues. "In fact, the solution offered everything we needed to revolutionise our approach to IT management."
Els purchased the 700 licences for the Kaseya solution and installed it himself on premises. "I rolled it out on my own and the implementation went incredibly smoothly, as Kaseya integrated perfectly with our Microsoft environment - it was as simple as that. I spent a day with Kaseya running through the functionality of the system, especially the Kaseya Essentials module, Success Track and the updates, reporting and monitoring functions."
Els explains that he is now able to run all the applications, updates and security checks himself, which has freed up Babcock's IT staff to play a more proactive role in the organisation. "We all have more time to do the other important elements of our jobs because patch releases, which were the most time-consuming element of our jobs, are now automated. Everything can also be done remotely, so technicians don't need to be on site all the time."
The solution has also significantly reduced the IT department's travel expenditure, according to Els. It also means when technicians perform site visits, they are more productive with their time as they're not simply dealing with issues.
"Kaseya has successfully taken all of the mundane, time-consuming, yet still essential day-to-day tasks off our plates, which has had a financial impact on our department, and our ability to deliver the level of IT management the company needs to operate optimally. We are therefore very keen to look at additional modules to see how Kaseya can benefit our business in other ways," concludes Els.
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