Bespoke support services
Flexible support for your business
Flexible support for your business Qworks offers all the IT support an organisation might need, from both an operational and strategic perspective. We have developed a range of services that can fit together to offer a practical alternative to managing your own internal IT resource or work in conjunction with your in-house IT team.
Bespoke support services
We’re renowned for the support provided by our helpdesk, but we offer so much more to help your organisation achieve more. Our range of services covers every aspect of IT support, from training and consultancy to continuity and consumables.
You can choose just the service you need or you can include some or all of them as part of a comprehensive Qworks managed services solution.
Managed Support Services However well a system is put together, there is always likely to be something that causes you an issue and requires external support to resolve it. Our helpdesk is not only an integral part of our business, but epitomises our commitment to quality and customer service. It is entirely based in the UK, at our head office in Tamworth and the dedicated team of specialists provide unlimited support for all our contracted users, from 8.00am – 6.00pm, Monday to Friday, with out of hours support available by special arrangement.
All businesses are different which is why we offer a comprehensive range of support options to allow every organisation to select the one that best suits the unique requirements of their operation. To read in depth what each of these support levels provide then please see our Tailored Support for your Business brochure.
Consultancy Recognising that as a business grows and changes, so too must the IT strategy, we offer a range of consultancy services designed to help clients identify where improvements can be made, or where the use of new technology will deliver a competitive advantage. Strategic Consultancy
Technical Consultancy
We have built an enviable reputation for not just delivering IT solutions that meet our clients’ needs, but advising them on the IT strategy that helps guide their business. Our consultancy service is based on first building a comprehensive understanding of your business and its objectives.
As important as it is to develop the right IT strategy, with advice where appropriate, it will rely heavily on the right technology to support the decisions made. Our technical consultancy helps you make decisions based on informed, well-focused analysis of your current technological resources.
If you are considering implementing a new technology or just want to audit your existing IT strategy we will provide the experienced advice to confirm your business has the tools it needs to succeed.
We will also help you with a Gap Analysis to assess what you need to take you from where you are, to where you want to be and what support you might need to implement the changes, with consideration of any likely business risks.
As your business grows, it will undoubtedly change and require an IT strategy that reflects these changes and it is our experience that allows us to offer proactive consultancy, not just reactive solutions. We work closely with clients and identify where improvements can be made, or where the use of new technology, a new approach or increased resources will deliver a competitive advantage.
Project Management
When a business is considering a merger or acquisition, we will investigate the IT infrastructure of the target firm and formulate a plan for successful integration, requiring the minimum of effort.
As a practical, hands-on business, we also offer project management services in conjunction with our consultancy services. When we have helped clients identify the benefits of implementing new software applications or the upgrading of current ones, we will run the project to a successful conclusion. For businesses that perhaps lack the resources to undertake major projects, we can assist with a broad range of ventures, from the IT planning involved with a merger or acquisition, to designing and implementing new infrastructures embracing the latest technologies.
Training Services For a business to extract the maximum benefit from its investment in technology, it is essential the individual users within the business are trained to operate efficiently and effectively. To achieve this aim, we work with our clients to establish tailored training strategies, which are not only effective, but measurable. We place strong emphasis on the business aspects of training, allowing us to better appreciate the objectives of our clients and ensure that courses meet their goals. We also understand that it’s often better to train people in their own offices, rather than in ours, which not only adds to the practical working environment, but cuts travel expenses. However, for those organisations that prefer off-site courses, we have fully equipped training suites at our facility in Tamworth.
Our focus is on developing long term partnerships with our clients through an ongoing cycle of assessment, planning, training, review and feedback. Training needs within organisations are changing all the time and our approach provides a much higher level of benefit to the client than a one-off training service, although this can also be accommodated on request.
Application Training
Bespoke Training
Word – With many employees self-taught, our trainers will help users gain a basic understanding of Word and its many features, allowing them to create and edit professional looking documents for a variety of purposes and situations.
Our training courses are tailored to the unique requirements of your business, ensuring users train with your applications, your data and your operational processes. This practical and pragmatic approach helps individual’s improve and be more productive; it benefits only your business and shapes their knowledge to your needs. We will also work with you to understand third-party applications important to your business, undertake training and help future employees get to grips with the basics.
Excel – Upon completing the training users will be able to create and edit practical spreadsheets, whilst learning how to be efficient in managing the worksheet environment; creating cell data; formatting cells and worksheets; managing worksheets and workbooks; applying formulas and functions; presenting data visually; sharing worksheet data and analysing and organising data. Outlook – Designed for those who want to learn about using Outlook for email, as a personal diary and for personal tasks. On completion of this course, you will be able to use Outlook to format message content, produce graphic elements such as charts and tables, create contact records and groups and share schedules. PowerPoint – Designed for those who want to create presentations using their current version of Microsoft PowerPoint, our training offers an understanding of presentation graphics and shows how to produce a presentation. Users will learn how to work with a presentation; create text slides; use masters; set up a presentation; display a slide show; create charts; work with pictures; enhance a presentation and use animations and transitions.
Macro & Template Development We also offer practical support to help you improve productivity and efficiency throughout your business through automated document creation in the likes of Word and Excel. Following a briefing to understand your needs, we will write macros to help deliver consistency or speed up calculations, so your staff don’t have to. Templates will ensure consistency in all your communications and deliver a set of standardised documents, users can access with confidence.
Test Centre We are a Microsoft accredited Test Centre, where anyone can sit appropriate exams in any Office application, to a number of levels from basic to professional. However, recent rule changes mean it’s now possible to bring our exam centre to you and limit time out of the office for your workforce – qualification rather than just training, helps build user confidence and create a greater sense of loyalty amongst your employees.
Recovery Services Despite your best efforts, situations will often arise that adversely impact the ability of systems, infrastructure and applications to operate normally, affecting the operation of your organisation. It could be a natural or man-made disaster that affects an office location, a technical issue or cyber-attack that affects the integrity of a system, network or application, but limiting down time is the key. Disaster Recovery It’s important to remember, the more comprehensive the recovery plan, the better chance the business has of recovering from the disaster. As part of any Disaster Recovery contract, Quiss will fully document and test recovery procedures in accordance with the particular needs of your organisation.
A contract with Quiss ensures unrivalled recovery times; we can have hardware commissioned, operating systems loaded and disks configured within seven working hours. A business can be up and running within 24 hours from disaster notification.
Disaster Recovery Ship to Site service
Inactive/Active Disaster Recovery
We have four service levels available, to allow you to decide the response you need should the worst happen:
We continually evolve our services to ensure we have solutions to match the requirements of organisations of all sizes and complexity. This determination to innovate led to the development of our Inactive/Active Disaster Recovery solution, which addresses the needs of smaller organisations, looking to protect their future, without spending large amounts of money.
Ship to Site Basic – Hardware only shipped to site within 24 hours of notification of disaster. Use of hardware for up to eight weeks, with option to purchase hardware at RRP. No operating system or application load is included with this option and we take no responsibility for the state of backups. Ship to Site Bronze – Hardware only shipped to site within 24 hours of notification of disaster. Use of hardware for up to eight weeks, with option to purchase hardware at RRP. Client supplies operating system licence details and we load base operating system, but not applications or data. Again we take no responsibility for the state of backups. Ship to Site Silver – Hardware commissioned and deployed within 24 hours of notification of disaster. Initial configuration undertaken, with operating system, applications and data loaded on-site, with full on-site support and use of the system for up to eight weeks, although extended periods are available. This option also includes a comprehensive Disaster Recovery test. Ship to Site Gold – This service includes everything provided as part of the ‘Silver’ package, but additionally includes daily backup checks, month-end tape verification and off-site tape storage.
This solution relies on an assessment of your IT infrastructure, with a record of all the information necessary to create a copy of this IT environment at extremely short notice – often within hours. The snapshots taken of each physical or virtual server supported are then stored at our disaster recovery centre and the process then becomes Inactive. Importantly for smaller firms, after the initial consultation fee, the only cost until the service is required is a small annual charge. When required, the service becomes Active and you supply the latest backed-up data, sending your tapes, disks or hard drives by courier if necessary. Only at this point do the costs associated with new hardware, software licensing etc., become chargeable and these are usually covered by business insurance.
Business Continuity There are any number of reasons a business can find it is denied access to its premises, whether it’s a fire next door or a civil emergency, the effect is the same; major disruption. To cope with any such eventuality, Quiss has purpose-built, fully equipped recovery suites available in Tamworth, able to accommodate up to 100 individuals. If you cannot access your premises, for whatever reason, our Tamworth-based Recovery Suites ensure we can re-create your office and IT environment within hours. In the event of a disaster our specialist recovery team will be on hand to assist in relocating your staff in an efficient, yet effective manner.
Each position in our recovery suite includes a desk, chair, desktop PC, a phone and data connection; all available for a very competitive price. Your critical operations can be live with a minimum of disruption to your communications, your staff and critically your customers. In these circumstances, speed is of the essence. By maintaining a desktop image of all the PC applications utilised by our clients, we can quickly create a copy of an individual’s own PC, at a desk in our recovery suite and have them back up and running just as soon as they can get here.
Business Continuity Office Recovery service • Custom-built disaster recovery suite in Tamworth • Fully secure data centre • Fast internet connectivity • Advanced telephony with direct dial functionality and voicemail
• Call re-direction for remote workers • 12 week recovery period as standard • Remote access • Up to 100 employees accommodated • Full on-site support
All businesses should have a detailed, tested and proven Business Continuity Management Plan ideally with a Workplace Recovery option, which may include a remote site, but still businesses trade on without this necessary and sensible precaution. For those undertaking regulated activity the plan will often form part of a business’ operating licence. We have clients spread throughout the UK and to demonstrate our commitment to providing a professional level of business support we tailor a range of Workplace Recovery and Business Continuity solutions to your needs with easily accessed recovery suites available at our Tamworth headquarters. We continue to strengthen our coverage and provide the best Workplace Recovery and Business Continuity solutions to businesses and organisations like yours, from SME’s to multi-site global corporations and just about everything in between. In fact the only thing they all have in common is the belief that it will never happen to them.
Audio-visual Ideally, we’d make all of our meetings face-to-face, but that’s a lot of travelling time, given the global nature of business these days. The need for greater efficiency at the heart of every business ensures growing interest in technology that allows closer collaboration between colleagues and better communication with clients. Audio conferences and low quality, web-based solutions rarely let you see everyone you’re meeting with or what’s happening in the conference room. Video-conferencing allows much clearer communication and greater comprehension thanks to being able to see and react to non-verbal cues. It’s time organisations made the video conference experience available to everyone. Once we understand your organisation and its objectives, we can advise, design, deliver and install the most appropriate audio-visual solutions. For many years we have been helping organisations of every size and complexity, across all sectors, public and private achieve greater efficiency and closer collaboration. We look at working practices, processes, objectives and potential problems before specifying the most appropriate integrated solution designed to deliver the desired outcome.
Hosted Video-conferencing Bring colleagues closer, any time, any place with any device, thanks to a hosted video solution. Our solutions are designed with any organisation in mind, with video cloud services delivered as a standalone service without the need for additional hardware or software. We worry about the technology, so you don’t have to and we deliver a simple to use, engaging experience, with unlimited video meetings for a low monthly charge. Our solution will not only help you cut down on travel expenses, but will encourage more, shorter meetings to build the collaborative spirit that will drive innovation and efficiency throughout your organisation. Projects no longer have to wait for a face-to-face meeting now busy people can meet virtually, anytime, anywhere.
On-premise Video-conferencing
Digital Signage
If you have already invested in video-conferencing or your IT department wants to be able to maintain control and security, our on-premise business video-conferencing solutions fit the bill perfectly. The systems are just as easy to use, but now it sits on your network, allowing you to configure by location, team and user, whilst optimising the interface they experience, which can be refined based on experience.
We offer a range of digital signage and touch screen solutions, to allow you to engage with colleagues and clients more closely, offering interactive messages to help guide, inform, assist and entertain. We help you create a dynamic environment with personalised content managed from a central system that ensures the right messages are viewed by the right people at the right time.
Quiss can help you maximize security, with everything on your network, within your firewall and integrated into your existing systems. Our solutions seamlessly plug into your existing software and are likely to be interoperable with your current video investments.
Our range has something for every organisation, regardless of size, from simple showcase systems utilising new or existing HD screens, to leading bespoke hardware and software solutions for more complex installations. Your imagination, combined with our experience ensures your messages will have the impact you need.
CCTV Whether you just want a system to monitor vehicle or pedestrian access to your premises, or a comprehensive system for security surveillance within, Quiss can help. Our experience will help you choose from HD CCTV cameras, dome cameras, wireless CCTV, IP CCTV and live CCTV camera systems to ensure you achieve the most suitable solution.
Interactive Projection When you have a great message and really want to make an impact, nothing has quite the same effect as interactive projection. Whether it’s a giant wall projection to engage clients or interactive floor images to entertain and educate children, we have the experience and expertise to combine the leading technology with innovative software to deliver something truly extraordinary – words alone cannot do the end result justice. You now have the option to showcase your products and services, whilst allowing people to interact with them; move them, play with them, change them and choose them, all in a virtual world at their fingertips, controlled by you and only limited by your imagination.
Procurement Services Hardware
Software
We are happy to work with our clients existing hardware, but carry substantial new stock, ready to be configured as necessary or shipped immediately to supplement systems or replace broken items. We supply organisations of all sizes with laptops, desktops, towers, monitors and industry leading servers, ensuring we more than meet the needs of our clients.
In our experience, it’s not just hardware issues that can cause problems and undermine your IT infrastructure, although they can be more obvious and easy to fix when they go wrong. Every organisation now relies on the interoperability of an ever-increasing range of software programmes and applications. Knowing how well they work together before you invest is a big advantage and something we can help with.
Our large buying power and industry wide sources allow us to offer competitive prices on everything from routers and network switches to cables and printers; whatever it takes to keep you going and grow your business. Whether the hardware you need will be included in one of our support packages, or you just want a simple out-of-thebox solution, please get in touch and we’ll help you avoid the high prices and poor service found elsewhere. And we’re not just about big boxes and new hardware as our experienced service team can repair most things, given the time and the parts, if they’re still available. We’ll also advise on upgrades to your existing equipment to ensure you achieve the right solution in the most costeffective manner. It’s not just the big-ticket items too, we will supply associated hardware components, spares and peripherals, including cables, fans, graphics cards, processors, hard drives, memory, motherboards, network cards, processors, UPS and much more.
It’s not just about selling new software, we offer a responsive and reliable software support service that extends to third party applications, to ensure you can concentrate on core activities and we ensure it all just works as it should. In fact with our outstanding support and maintenance service for your software, we don’t just make it work as it should, but make it better; we help you lessen the risks associated with system changes and extend the life of your systems by working closely with you and understanding your objectives. If you have business critical systems prone to regular failure or your software is customised to the point the original supplier is unable to support it, we can work with you to strengthen and stabilise your system, helping reduce future maintenance costs and improve productivity.
Consumables
Licenses
Our dedicated procurement team has been supplying organisations, large and small, with IT and printer consumables for decades, from printer ribbons and toner to listing paper and storage drives.
Ensuring your organisation has the correct software licensing scheme is not just a regulatory and compliance necessity, but an important driver for productivity and efficiency improvements.
With clients ranging from local SMEs to global brands needing products shipped around the world, our extensive warehouse has everything they need, with most products immediately available. Years of experience servicing this sector ensures we not only supply the consumables you need, but will advise on where improvements might be made or when an alternative might do the job better, or save you money.
Our experience will help keep you legal and also offer advice as to the best options for your organisation, to help save you money or even stop you wasting significant amounts of money on the wrong options. It’s important you give due consideration to licensing, given the potential fines and reputational damage associated with getting it wrong, especially for those organisations that need home use or multiple device agreements. We have an enviable track record helping organisations of all sizes and complexity discover, understand and source the most appropriate options for their unique requirements.
Excellence through experience
QUISS TECHNOLOGY PLC Claymore, Tame Valley Industrial Estate, Tamworth, B77 5DQ TELEPHONE 01827 265000 EMAIL enquiries@quiss.co.uk
www.quiss.co.uk