The Solution

In the beginning, Cygnet Accounting required an MSP to take over the daily IT support, backups of their systems and proactively maintain their infrastructure.  KMT’s Managed IT Support did just that.

The managed IT services meant that the management of users, IT systems, IT policies and procedures were taken care of.  In addition, the onboarding and offboarding of staff is managed by the team meaning Cygnet no longer has to worry about the status of any of these issues.

As part of the onboarding process, KMT takes a good look ‘under the hood’ to understand more about the business and their current IT environment.  It is at this stage that a strategic roadmap and solution is developed to help clients improve the efficiencies of their technology and streamline any licencing, servers or infrastructure.  During this stage, it was identified that Cygnet had some inefficiencies in their infrastructure and a migration to Microsoft 365 was recommended.

Microsoft 365 Tenancy Consolidation

In 2019 Cygnet made the decision to merge their Financial Planning and Accounting business under the one banner.  They undertook a rebrand process however, their IT infrastructure still operated on different platforms.

Within a short period of time after onboarding, KMT identified that some of the team was still using Gmail which is inefficient and not secure.  They then made the proactive recommendation that Cygnet migrate to Office 365.

The decision was made to migrate the businesses to Office 365 tenancy which provided a more robust platform that provided a secure collaboration experience which enabled their teams to adapt to the new modern workplace requiring flexibility around working from anywhere.

Part of KMT’s appeal came from its experience with many migration projects.  They were experts in ensuring that the project as meticulously planned and managed ultimately making sure there was no downtime for staff and the data and emails were protected.

Proactive Remote Monitoring + patching

Cygnet was acutely aware that their antivirus, patches and backups were inconsistent across computers and often not compliant with best practices.  The maintenance of hardware and software was ad-hoc and overdue.

KMT’s Managed IT Service took care of this and business applications are current, backups are regular and properly managed, and maintenance and patching of software and applications is up to date.

An Office Move

Aside from the infrastructure upgrade that occured and the improvements in proactive monitoring and maintenance, Cygnet Accounting moved offices.

KMT Project Management services provided the technology support they needed during the move process.  For Cygnet, the move was a large undertaking.

Many things needed organization. Servers and hardware had to be moved and new hardware had to be ordered.  The outcome of the project was no downtime for staff and KMT managed the entire project from start to finish.  Cygnet did not have to worry about a thing.  Everything ran smoothly.

With any office move, there are many moving parts and the projects team at KMT owned the technology aspect.  “The one thing we knew was that we would not have to worry about IT.  We had complete confidence that KMT would get it right and they did”  Jeremy comments.

Why KMT?

Cygnet was looking for a partner and not just a service provider. From the first meeting, Cygnet understood that KMT would deliver the right solutions and great service.  However, they also believed they could trust them with their honesty and open style of communication.

“We were looking for a partner we could trust, someone that we had confidence in they would not only deliver the right IT solutions but that we could work with,” Jeremy says.

“We liked them in the first meeting.  We were confident they would deliver the right IT solutions, but we wanted to know we could work with them as our IT partner and trust them to do the right thing.  From the beginning we liked what they were saying, they were upfront, honest and didn’t speak all geek talk to us.  We felt KMT was a good fit.”

The entire team at Cygnet enjoys working with KMT.  “They explain complex IT issues in plain language and explain what is needed for the business. The staff makes it particularly easy for the IT-challenged.”

Outsourcing our IT meant choosing the right people with the right experience

For Cygnet, what differentiated KMT from others was the people. They believed them to have made a huge difference. “There is an expectation that KMT understands technology – it’s a given that KMT will get the IT right.  They are very capable as an IT partner.  But it is the way the staff manage our issues,” said Jeremy. “Communication keeping us abreast of the progress of issue resolution, the regular account meetings and the personal approach of the team is what sets them apart.”

The structure of the team is a dedicated Account Manager.  The Account Manager meets with the business monthly to catch up on any issues and every quarter a Quarterly Strategic Review is held to discuss metrics, performance and an IT roadmap moving forward.  This process ensures alignment and creates a shared vision, providing clarity for the business and confidence their technology is growing with them.

For day-to-day technology issues, there is a Customer Experience Manager and a Customer Service Officer that triages all IT support inquiries for Cygnet making sure they are directed to the right IT support technician so the issue is resolved fast and with the right outcome.

Cygnet feels the conversations are easy, they are always able to get in touch with their Account Manager any time who works closely with the business to ensure their requirements are met.  “This is what sets KMT apart”  Cygnet representative comments.  “We have easy conversations with the right people at the right time and we know that our issues will be actioned and resolved quickly.  We are confident that all issues will be resolved within a reasonable time frame.” he said.

He went on to mention three words that describe the value proposition of KMT, “Approachable”, “Down to Earth” and “Efficient.”

So what impact has outsourcing IT made?

Today, Cygnet functions with confidence that their IT system is running smoothly in safe hands.   They are confident leaving KMT to manage all things IT and are focused towards their core competencies – accounting and financial planning and growing their business.

Jeremy believes that KMT has provided tremendous value in terms of “silencing the noise around IT”.    We believe it has saved us over 10 hours a month.

“KMT’s Communication is proactive, informative and clear.  If there are changes to anything related to my account, it is dealt with well in advance and I feel like they really are a true partner.”

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