Good morning everybody. This is rance Turley with Turley shank innovations, Tsi. So today I’d like to talk about vendor management and IT Services Bartlesville. So kind of entails a couple of aspects. When it comes to small medium businesses. Um, a lot of times they use a service that is offered from a vendor that’s offsite and mostly relies on an internet connection. Sometimes say install an appliance in the network room. Um, for instance, uh, I know way back when dealing with mobile device support or mobile device management, we had a mobile iron appliance in the um, network or server room actually and we worked with the vendors anytime there was an issue with getting um, that, that aspect working with the clients as far as um, making sure data was secure on bringing your own device model of a mobile access. And it’s, it was one of those things where we were actually, this was with a company I worked at a company and was part of their it staff.
So we interface with the vendors and with us being an MSP managed service provider, we’d like to offer that for small businesses mainly because some of the services that we offer make more sense to come through another vendor, a for example like voiceover IP mainly for tax purposes. Because when you get into the telecom space, there are regulations and fees that have to be, uh, um, assessed and remitted to certain authorities that at we’re, we’re not at that level. I think it’s definitely something we’d like to do eventually. But right now getting our, uh, getting some traction, it’s not, the solutions are already out there. And some of them were geared towards working with MSPs and doing it remotely is not, not a big deal. But in any case, uh, working with, uh, so working with vendors, um, a lot of times we’ve come across where like mfds multifunctional devices, um, large printers are provided through another vendor.
And just as an example, we replaced pcs at a client and they went from, I think there were one seven to win 10, and they couldn’t scan. So we checked everything we could and it turned out being an SMB version one, which that scanner used, the MFD used. Um, we had to do a IT Services Bartlesville worker on with that, but a little bit later I had another issue that they’re printing went down for multiple devices, not just the ones that were recently replaced. So we checked our set up, made sure the network equipment, networking equipment was all done properly, configured things. We’re able to connect to each other. And the, um, we look through our points of failure. Um, and we did, we weren’t able to find anything, so we reached out to the vendor on behalf of this client. I’m not, I haven’t seen a whole lot where that’s typically offered, especially in our area, but it’s tremendously helpful because for a small business or an office manager, um, they may or may not be technologically inclined and they wouldn’t be able to tell.
Okay. So this is where the issue is. It’s, you know, it could be anything from if they’re using a web application, maybe is trying to run a trying to run Java. It needs a specific version of Java to run this application or flash needs to be enabled. And in chrome we know it’s not by default. Um, just things like that. So what we do is we offer to take ownership of that vendor relationship so that we can basically talk the same language when it comes to support. So we can look and see, maybe they need a specific court opens on the firewall or um, certain certain privileges for the user of that machine. It, it’s, it’s really a case by case basis. And we as an MSP offered to handle the vendor management with specific vendors. Uh, some vendors don’t. It makes sense for us to look at the issue and then saying, well, we’ll look at the issue and then we’ll tell you where that fault lies.
And if we do handle that vendor management relationship, then we will take the next step of reaching out to them, providing them all of the relevant information and referring to our documentation of the network and the whole system as a, uh, as it integrates with their solution, we can identify where, what next steps need to happen. We, we do the same thing with vendor relationships. We don’t manage, but we provide the information to the point of contact with that other vendor. So instances where that makes sense. Maybe, um, like a dentist’s office, they have some very specialized equipment that they get through vendors and the vendors support that. So it doesn’t make sense for us to come in and say, Oh, you’re exiting the machine’s down. Let’s make sure it’s not our fault. Let’s, let’s look and see if it makes sure it’s not a configuration that we touched, which it’s pretty safe to say we, we wouldn’t take on that kind of relationship.
Um, being the go between with the vendor and that office in that instance because connected to a machine, it may or may not be connected to the Internet, but if it is or if it’s connected to the network, at least we can say it’s connected to the network and we can see that it’s trying to talk to something or it really just depends on the issue. If it’s a connectivity issue. Yeah. We’ll take a quick look and let you know whether it’s or there anything that looks off on the network side but I’m not even sure if x rays are connected to the network. I haven’t come across one but I’m sure somewhere somehow that’s, that is the case. But we like to offer that to simplify the entire support process because we, we are an outsourced it department that will provide all of the benefits of enterprise level it for those small shops.
You know, um, we’ve got a client with a PC and a tablet and we want to work with them to make sure that they stay up and running because it’s a, it’s a small shop, but they do use quite a bit of technology so it makes sense to have that type of support available. And they, they do, they do work with, um, they work with at least one vendor and we, uh, manage that relationship is because it’s centered around that tablet and also a kind of a, a large, uh, TV used as, uh, for informational purposes. So it ties into the network. So it’s, we handle that relationship because it’s, I mean, technology is quickly changing. It’s kind of, it’s kind of ridiculous. When I grew up, we didn’t have cell phones. Now everybody has one. And it’s just the technology is changing at an ever increasing pace.
So we like to own the vendor management, um, so that we can provide a better, a higher level of service for our clients so that we can keep productivity. It’s, I mean that’s really the, the main, the main um, aspect of managed it services that you, well, I mean that’s why you get it because that’s why you want somebody there to reliably make sure that everything is working. Everything continues to work, which is the essence of our monitoring platform to circumvent any potential issues down the road. And we like to implement that. A vendor management, not only for ease of production or continued productivity and ease of a remediation, but it’s also, you know, it’s, we’d like that peace of mind that we can provide for our clients that they know that this issue will get fixed and we lay out exactly. Okay. At what point do we need your involvement other than, okay.
If you, if you’re noticing issues, let us know. We can reach out to the vendor, we can take a look and see if it’s computer level or network level or a permissions level. We rule out everything that is on our side because sometimes you call a vendor and they’re not available. He tried to get a support person and you might be on hold for 30, 45 minutes if it’s a large one. But the coincidence or aside from that you also need to understand exactly what’s happening. Sometimes you will get a ticket that says the computers as slow. Okay. Is it as your Internet connection’s slow, is the desktop at slow? Is it just, is the, I mean physical Aes, is the mouse moving slowly on the screen or there’s, there’s a few levels that you have to take into consideration when an issue does arise, especially when it’s a vendor supported system or a service that’s offered that like, um, an online portal that everybody logs into for a patient data or tracking or, um, anything that makes anything, any kind of service that you use that even onsite hardware.
We look at connections and it’s not, um, it’s not very typical, but we have seen it to where the vendor has appliances onsite and we just make sure that it has the proper connections, proper settings as far as security policies go, a firewall settings and gets access, certain ports open, things like that. And we can make sure that it’s properly configured on our sides so that the vendor can do what they need to, if they have to either remote in or send a tech on site to service their equipment. So, and we can all, we also kind of lay out, we provide documentation on the system so they could also work with us to point, okay. So, uh, let us know if maybe we need to recheck a, a setting or something. They kind of like, maybe they need a specific port active that we, it’s not typically used for any kind of service that we’ve come across before.
So it’s, it’s a, we provide that first or that level of management with the vendors to ease every aspect of your small business, small to medium business and keep you and your employees working. It’s, it’s nice to be able to offer that peace of mind because it’s when like say a, a huge service goes down or you, we can’t get to a service that processes payments, you’re literally losing money every time, every minute that that’s down. So, uh, we, we come in and you know, from top to bottom we check our stuff and then reach out to the vendor as soon as possible. Another aspect of what we can do with specifically for services that are a web base, um, we have a, an option to watch the end points from their servers to the client location and it, it’s, it lets us know it’s um, for those of you familiar with solar winds, it’s Netpath to NetPath checks every, it’s kind of like a very, it’s a visual trace route, Brian from their server to um, the client location.
So basically at watches each of those end points and if there’s an issue with any of those points, we are alerted, uh, potentially, uh, I, we haven’t seen it yet or we haven’t implemented it for any clients, mainly because we’re still onboarding some new ones. But once we implement that, um, it will allow us to see if there’s going to be an interruption of service and we can reach out to the client and be proactive and say, Hey, you might notice some issues with this. Um, we’re keeping an eye on it. We’ll reach out to them. It also provides a, a number for the area for whoever owns that next, the next leg in that path in between two points so that you can potentially reach out to them and say, Hey, we noticed that this is down, is a there. Do you have a timeframe as to when this will be back up?
And that’s, that’s really invaluable because it’s your, it’s this whole proactive aspect of it, which is that’s what managed service providers do. That’s, that’s the essence of being a managed service provider because you stay on top of what’s happening. You’re not, it’s kind of like how successful people run their lives or live their lives. They don’t, they aren’t reactive. They don’t react to the world around them. They’re proactive. They’re actively planning and acting on what they have defined as goals and that’s how we run our it business. Our managed service provider company is that we are proactive with the support we provide and the offer and the services we provide. We work it into a proactive system that modeled after some of the most successful people in our society that demonstrate this being mindful and proactive with themselves. That’s how we are with your it services because we understand the importance of that proactive of being proactive.
We can let you know that, hey, this, there’s a, looks like there’s a, some, an issue with this, uh, the connection from this service to your office on whatever location. We want you to be aware that we’re keeping an eye on it and that it, you might notice some issues as far as connectivity goes, but hopefully it won’t affect your day to day business. But we will be in touch with the vendor. Uh, alternatively, at the desktop level, we, um, get, we get reports daily that tell us, okay, this PC is consistently running at a high percentage, a high CPU percentage. Uh, well let’s look at either the services that are currently running on startup or look at a run. Some districts make sure the health of the drivers, okay, um, we might bring this up next time we’re on site to say, hey, we this potentially this is a good candidate for an upgrade.
A. Granted, we ideally when we onboard, we get everything, most everything up to a certain level, uh, with licensing and hardware specs. And we, um, if we don’t, obviously we’ll keep an eye on that machine, keep extra mile, be mindful of the alerts that we get. And on top of that, we also, it kind of ties into vendor management, the procurement process. We handle that and we order the equipment and if there we test it and if there are issues, we sent it back, we handle the RMA process and clients don’t have to worry about that. So that’s another aspect of vendor management so that we ordered the equipment and if there are any issues, we handle those issues before it even gets to the client side so that we can be, it’s that proactive aspect of it that we provide. So that’s really, that’s um, kind of vendor management in a nutshell with us.
Please um, visit us at Tsi LC. That’s our website and we are also on Facebook at Tsi Msp is are a handle and I think we have a, I’ll have to double check. I know we have an Instagram, I think it’s Turley Shank, s c h e n. C. K. And we have a Twitter as well. Turley Shank LLC. I believe. So thank you all for joining us for this podcast and I hope I was able to talk about vendor management to your satisfaction. Hopefully you have a better idea of what it is we offer. Um, the one aspect of what we offer. That’s kind of what we’re shooting for with these initial podcasts. Just giving, I’ll just laying out our services at a more in depth level. But granted, you know, we, we want to meet with potential clients and we want to sit down and look at what makes sense for their environment because we want to offer you, we don’t want to sell you something. We don’t want to offer you something that doesn’t make sense. So I appreciate your IT Services Bartlesville time and hope you all have a good day. Thank you.