Case Study: Principal Managed Services

Principal – The experts in IT, print and cloud services
Principal, the leading supplier of print and document services, for nearly 30 years, has been providing tailor-made solutions for document and print management hardware, software, IT consulting on premise, IT infrastructure and cloud-based services.
‘ISG Technology is our trusted partner. Professional, friendly and good at what they do.’
Martin Eden – Group Operations Director at Principal
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The Challenge
What made you initially look for a service partner?
Principal wanted to provide out of hours Service Desk to support its growing number of Managed Service customers. They understood that building a 24/7 team was not a commercially viable solution and looked to leverage the technical expertise and scale of the ISG Service Desk, based in the ISG European Support Centre in Sofia.
We also wanted their IT team to concentrate more on projects and specific drivers for their business-critical developments rather than the time-consuming day to day support and they didn’t want to increase their own IT internal resource costs.
What qualities were you looking for in your chosen service partner?
In depth skills, depth and breadth of knowledge and experience in Principal’s IT requiring support. Add on skills that may be needed in the future.
The Solution
Having reviewed the ISG Service Desk facility in detail, Principal staff now contact ISG Technology with any issues relating to their laptops and desktops as any alerts from the server estate are received by ISG for triage and resolution.
Were your expectations with regards to the service ISG Technology delivered?
‘They met our expectations. Professional, accommodating, friendly. Nothing was too much trouble and service continued without any disruptions. We have regular service reviews and they are always looking to improve the service taking on-board our feedback.’
Who do you deal with in the main from ISG service?
‘Service Delivery manager, Service Desk manager and individual service desk agents’
What is your impression about them?
‘We have set up a very trusting relationship. Very professional and friendly and they have lots of expertise within Service Desk and added value areas outside of the service desk such as O365, SharePoint and Software development.’
Business Benefits
Principal business has expanded due to the addition service offering of out of hours’ support and also by outsourcing the management of their internal user support, thereby freeing up the internal IT team to focus on more business-critical developments. Having successfully taken on the end-user support, Principal further extended the scope of the service to provide proactive remote management and support for their server estate.
Do you think the service is delivering value for money?
‘Yes, this service is delivering value for money.’
What was the driver for you to take the decision to expand the service ISG Technology delivers to include support for your own end users and your server estate?
‘We made this decision because we were and are very happy with the service and the value add areas. They have proved that they deliver a quality service.’
How would you sum up the relationship with ISG Technology?
‘Trusted partners. Professional, friendly and good at what they do.’
The role of any IT team is to actively support the changing requirements of the Business through enhancements and new developments. Ensuring that the existing IT environment continues to operate effectively allows the in-house team to focus on the new projects driving business growth.
Engaging with ISG provides Principal with access to a myriad of technical resources at a price point lower than adding a single new head and provides Principal with the confidence that any issue with the existing estate will be identified and managed against a comprehensive SLA.

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