Having worked with IT provider Lanway for the past four years, Eden Housing Association has extended the relationship to cover third-line and ad-hoc technical support. This part-outsourced service has resulted in Eden Housing saving 36 per cent of its annual IT support costs.
Owen Kirkland, ICT systems and network coordinator, Eden Housing Association, said, “We had two main considerations when looking for a technology provider – price and knowledge. It was important to find the most cost-effective IT support package, but technical expertise was vital too. We wanted an IT partner that would complement our own expertise, and one that would understand how a small rural housing association works.
“We only use third-party support when we have exhausted our own knowledge and Lanway understood that. Some potential suppliers tried to push levels of support that we don’t want or need.”
Lanway’s Active3 service is designed for companies that have an internal IT function but require additional, external support for certain issues. As part of a bespoke, jointly-designed Active3 service, Lanway’s ITIL-accredited service desk remotely monitors Eden Housing’s infrastructure, tracking any incidents and creating daily reports that are passed to the internal IT team. A specialist Lanway engineer is dispatched to Eden Housing within four hours if needed, while lower level incidents are managed directly by the internal team.
Kirkland said, “For us, IT support requires a two-pronged approach. We want Lanway’s expertise to be there quickly when we need it, but we also want them to step back when an issue is being resolved onsite. From the outset, Lanway’s remote monitoring technicians had an excellent understanding of when they were needed and when they weren’t.”
As one of Dell UK’s premium partners, Lanway provides onsite maintenance of Eden Housing’s Dell servers, ensuring that they are running at their optimum level and that any technical problems are resolved quickly and with little impact on business operations.
Kirkland said, “Through Lanway’s partnership with Dell we also get the best possible prices for additional Dell servers, which is fantastic.”
Lanway also provides additional ad-hoc support for when all Eden Housing’s IT staff are unavailable, with first- and second-line support calls routed to Lanway’s engineers.
Kirkland said, “Because we’re a very small IT team of just a few staff, there are times when no one is available to deal with queries from the rest of the staff. Having that extra layer of service from Lanway means that support is always on hand, and our staff never feel isolated.”
