The Challenge
This SF Peninsula headquartered medical device manufacturer is small, but far-flung. More than a third of its employees are clinical specialists who work entirely remotely, traveling across the US and Europe to support and train doctors who use the company’s products. Since these employees are spread across multiple time zones, they need reliable 24-hour access to the corporate network to check their email, maintain calendars, and retrieve information ranging from training materials and device specifications to data about current clinical trials. The company also needs IT support to manage cybersecurity and maintain business-critical applications for all employees.
The company has no in-house IT expert and is too small to justify hiring a full-time IT support person. It decided instead to outsource its entire IT environment.
The Solution
Xantrion designed and implemented a network that includes remote desktop technology and is hosted in an offsite data center (Xantrion Cloud Strategy.) This makes it easy for all employees to use all network resources from wherever they are, at any time, while still safeguarding the cybersecurity of confidential data. By using remote desktop technology, employees can access necessary applications and sensitive data without storing them on their laptops or tablets — protecting sensitive information that might otherwise be compromised if a device was lost or stolen. In addition, because business-critical systems are now housed in a data center, the company has eliminated the risk of downtime due to an earthquake, power loss, or fire.
Xantrion Certified Support includes network monitoring to help ensure 24 x 7 x 365 availability and provides all the IT expertise the medical device firm needs at a price that fits into its budget. “Our dedicated engineer is very responsive and can get someone onsite for us quickly if necessary,” says the company’s vice president of operations. “And the help desk is indispensable, given that most of our issues involve remote users who need fast troubleshooting and response to keep our business running.”
The company especially appreciates how easily Xantrion’s services scale up or down to meet current needs. “Being able to get more or less support based on what we need at the time means that even when we grow large enough to have a dedicated full-time IT person, we can still continue to work with Xantrion for hosting,” the vice president of operations says.
The Outcome
With Xantrion providing hosting, design and support, the medical device manufacturer can ensure 24x7x365 system uptime to employees across multiple time zones. What’s more, working with Xantrion’s entire team is significantly less expensive than hiring a single full-time IT staffer who still couldn’t be available around the clock.
“Xantrion provides the service of a small IT group for less than the cost of a single hire,” the vice president of operations concludes. “You could easily say we’re saving 15 to 20 percent over what it would cost to bring that support in-house.”