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Having provided IT services to many small to medium enterprise customers in our 18 years’ experience in Dubai, IT Serve know the common experiences of such companies and the best it service approach for them.

One example of our SME support involves an interior design company based on Sheikh Zayed Road.

The company approached IT Serve, two years after their inception. They had started by trying to manage the IT requirements themselves but were finding that as their business was growing that they couldn’t give the time or commitment to their IT requirements. The problems they were encountering were as follows:

• Who to employ
• Structure and accessibility of data
• Communication
• Security of data
• Backup of data
• Routine onsite fixes – email/printer etc

IT Serve firstly met with the company to perform an audit of the IT systems. The audit rightly suggested that the aforementioned items needed to be addressed along with the risks involved with not actioning them.

IT Serve looked to address the data issues first. They created a Microsoft Office Server infrastructure which allowed the staff to have access to the information in a structured in-house manner. Each position was assessed, along with their requirements. This was then used to build an Active Directory system, which allows users access to only the information that is relevant to their role and level within the company. The server was also given online access to allow users outside of the office to access critical information.

With respect to communication, the company was struggling to manage internal communication. The team was using email for most communication and people were finding themselves forever looking for emails and information. IT Serve implemented the Microsoft Teams solution. This communication tool controlled the entire internal communication. Groups were created that were focused on certain project or tasks. For these groups, only the relevant staff for these projects were included in the group.

The external communication audit allowed us to understand that they were suffering with communicating large files between themselves, clients and vendors. Often they would send files to the other parties, only to later understand that these people did not receive them. We integrated a system that allowed them to upload large design files to their cloud storage. We then gave their clients and vendors an extranet access to these files.

With respect to the security of data IT Serve looked at the two main hazards, internal and external breaches. Often the internal data risks are overlooked, yet they pose the biggest threat.

As previously mentioned, the Active Directory design allowed users only the access to relevant information for their roles. Other rules were also implemented which limited access to information that could potentially threaten their company. Such information was only allowed to be accessed visually and was given restriction to download. Even the USB drives on the computer were locked down, to ensure that no data or design files could be easily removed from the office.

When addressing the external hazards, IT Serve built a robust routing and firewall system that protected their data from outside of the office risks. This ensured that no-one could access their network and server infrastructure without the correct levels of authorisation. This was also locked down with respect to guest WIFI access (a common form of unauthorised data access). The routing system also allowed the upper management to see the restrict the internet usage of their employees and to monitor the sites being accessed, ensuring the employees were using sites only relevant to their roles.

For the virus threat, IT Serve used their managed services platform to ensure that all hardware and software was up to date with patches and updates. It then ensured that all relevant systems were given industry top standard anti-virus software.

IT Serve build an off site backup system for their data. This would replicate their data on a daily (incremental) basis and a weekly (full) basis. This ensured that no matter what eventuality, their data was intact and accessible.

The question of who to employ is very common. It is difficult to quantify the level of experience required and even more difficult to qualify it (especially if your skillset is not in the IT or technology field). The interior design company opted for the IT Serve outsourced package. This ensured that IT Serve had high level and strategic control, the CTO function also allowed IT Serve to offer their support from a budgeting aspect. It allowed us to work remotely on incidents, to ensure speed of fixes was at the optimum. IT Serve also provided routine and reactive onsite support to the business. Because IT Serve only top level and experience support staff, they were ensured of the quality of the personnel.

To understand how you could use IT Serve to save your business time and money please contact us here.

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