Providing outsourced IT support for 20 years
What Kind of support are we offering?
If your business is based in Hong Kong or Singapore, then we have IT engineers ready to assist you. More than a remote helpdesk, we come onsite to maintain well-designed IT networks that feature high availability, performance and security. Sign up to a regular support package and you too can benefit from support on topics such as WiFi connectivity, Server support, Telecoms infrastructure, virus security measures, VPN set up and support, and much more.
Getting started with an IT provider:
1
Understanding Your Needs
When entering a new managed services agreement with a client, the first step is always to have a conversation to understand the key requirements of the business. For instance, whether email is the main mode of communication, where the employees are located, and what data each person should have access to. We will suggest a set up that works for your needs, rather than fitting your business against technological restrictions. We have 20 years’ experience working with SMEs and are constantly learning new features that we recommend to our clients.
2
IT Audit
The second most important step is to assess the IT infrastructure and capability that a business already has. This will take place in the form of an audit document, where a senior engineer will come on site to list out the various hardware and software the business is using and how it has been configured. This stage is critical for identifying gaps in the infrastructure that the business can take quick action to resolve. For instance, perhaps a software has been purchased but not applied correctly and therefore is not fulling it’s function. Alternatively, users may be incorrectly storing data on their desktops instead of using the company Sharepoint.
3
Identifying Problems
After the data-gathering stage of the audit comes the findings and recommendations. This is presented to you in a meeting where the key points to address will be called out in order of priority. The audit review contains a graphical diagram of your IT infrastructure currently, juxtaposed against the recommended set up for your business. It will also contain qualitative feedback from your employees on their experience using the current systems. This discussion will form the basis for an action plan that can be mapped out across the coming 12 months.
4
Structuring The Contract
Once the key issues and timetable have been agreed, together we would look at how the contract should be structured. We offer highly flexible contracts that suit diverse business needs, and therefore each contract is bespoke. Considerations that go into building the perfect IT support contract include: seniority of the engineers assigned, schedule of visits or ad hoc response only, onsite visits/remote support/a mixture of both, office hours support or weekends and evenings. In Hong Kong, all our engineers speak fluent English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
5
Billing Arrangements
Billing can either be arranged on a monthly basis or pre-paid up front. Our minimum contract length is 12 months. If the business requirement for IT support is estimated to be only 2-3 hours per month, then a bulk block of 30 hours could be purchased in a single installment, with the hours deducted in hourly increments for works conducted onsite, or 15-minute intervals for remote work. In a pre-paid contract setup, regular reporting lets you know how many hours have been used to ensure they are utilised within the 12 month expiry window.
Frequently Asked Questions
Working with IT providers could save you time and money. It minimizes and prevents costly IT breakdowns that can cost your business thousands in lost man-hours and productivity.
FunctionEight offer an hourly rate (based on the qualifications of the service delivery personnel), including substantial discounts for regular scheduled service and large projects.
We don’t only work with small business or those without an IT department.
If you’re a multi national organization, we would love to meet you too.
Many of our existing clients are international companies with an IT department based at their headquarters overseas.
Perhaps your office is in Hong Kong/Singapore but your HQ is in the Europe, North & South America, Australia.
We can be your remote hands, implementing policy on behalf of your internal team. This saves the cost of flying staff around the world to take care of the regional offices and minimizes frustration for local employees who don’t want to wait for the right time-zone to have their issues resolved.
One of our local System Engineers will respond to you request for support within 4 hours and can be onsite to assist you the next business day at the latest. FunctionEight’s sophisticated remote access tools and technicians can resolve most problems without the added expense and time of travel to your site.
If there is an agreed fixed schedule then one of our team of experienced field technicians and engineers will provide you with comprehensive on-site system maintenance at pre-determined times during the week.
Proactively maintaining systems allows us to pre-empt any issues before they arise, giving you a smooth system environment that you can work efficiently from.
If you have a pre-paid hours contract, we will not come onsite without request and we will never come onsite without prior approval.
Yes. Whilst we are most proficient in Microsoft environments, we also have engineers who are able to support you with Apple Mac and other devices.
Yes, we offer remote only contracts that can be serviced by our helpdesk. For more information on this set up please see our page on helpdesk support.
We recommend implementing an email gateway solution that will provide business continuity in case your email provider has an outage. We also suggest reviewing your domain hosting to see where your email data is stored and whether it is safe and efficient. If using O365, check your settings to see whether you have applied security features. Finally, have an archiving solution that keeps a record of your data for you. See our page on Mimecast for more information.
Yes, we can advice and support on your telecoms set up. In some cases, we will work with partners for example to provide comprehensive support for Avaya. We frequently have requests from businesses looking to move to soft phones. If this is of interest to you, let us know how we can support you.
Common problems facing small businesses include: internet connectivity, logout issues, printer and scanner troubleshooting.
For this kind of support only, we would suggest purchasing a pre-paid contract for 10-20 hours of support that can be used only when you actually need it.
Yes, we have senior IT professionals in both Singapore and Hong Kong who are able to act as your CTO. Click to find out more about this service.