Johannesburg, 09 Sep 2020
When Rusk Renovations, a high-end residential construction company doing business in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Riverdale and Westchester, had a cyber security scare in 2018, founder and partner John Rusk turned to Netsurit.
“Our provider at the time had let us down, and we were looking for a company that was as dedicated to client service as we are,” says Rusk. “Netsurit’s team stepped in the day of the breach and guided us through the process of securing our systems and preventing unauthorised access to our data. It was a time of significant stress as we realised that our previous provider had put few security protocols in place, but Netsurit restored our peace of mind.”
Rusk had met Louwki Coetsee, managing director of Netsurit in New York, through a business networking group and knew that Coetsee’s team provided IT support, strategy and system design. Rusk also knew that Netsurit had the systems and resources that his business required.
“We were looking for a provider with rigorous and robust processes and procedures in place,” says Rusk. “It was important for us to work with a provider that could evaluate our systems, assess the threat landscape, and come up with a solution tailored to our needs.”
Once Netsurit had secured Rusk Renovation’s IT infrastructure against cyber crime, the provider also insisted on employee training.
“Employees who are untrained in proper security practices are a vulnerability,” says Coetsee. “Companies of all sizes need to be prepared to protect themselves against what might come next. It is critical to train employees to recognise warning signs of cyber crime, as well as how to keep risks low in the first place, and how to report signs of a breach or attack. Clicking on a malicious link is one of the greatest security threats in any organisation.”
Next, Netsurit also managed Rusk Renovations’ move to the cloud, rolling out Microsoft 365 and Teams and training staff how to use the new solutions. It was not long after that New York City went under lockdown to fight the coronavirus.
“We suddenly faced the prospect of working remotely, away from our beloved office. Thankfully, Netsurit had convinced us to install Teams previously and we simply opened the program and found it was set up and running seamlessly. Thanks to Netsurit, we were able to work remotely from day one. And having a remote IT solution was invaluable as the company moved to 15 home offices instead of one centralised location. We are now in the process of sunsetting our current server and moving the rest of the business into the cloud with Netsurit’s assistance.”
Because Netsurit specialises in proactive maintenance and prevention, the company prevents problems before they occur, and has all the tools and processes in place to support customers remotely, extending a business’s infrastructure beyond the server, says Coetsee. “While COVID-19 may have made remote working and communications an absolute necessity, remote IT support provides fast responses, reduced costs and increased productivity because business operations can continue unhindered. In addition to this, staff are not diverted from their usual tasks, so productivity is not negatively impacted.”
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