How we work
Checklists, clear owners, and no surprises.
Good IT is mostly discipline: documented process, redundancy, and telling people what’s going on. Here’s what working with us actually looks like.
Onboarding
Onboarding in five stages.
Most switches reach steady state in 30 to 45 days from first call. Every stage has a checklist, an owner and a sign-off, and nothing moves to production until it’s documented and tested.
| Stage | When | What happens | You receive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Consultation | First | A conversation with leadership about what’s working, what isn’t, and what you need. A light external review of your environment. | A written summary and, if it fits, a proposal |
| 2. Discovery | Weeks 1–2 | Full inventory of users, devices, network, cloud, vendors and licenses. Credentials are vaulted, and the handover is coordinated with your current provider. | Documented environment and risk register |
| 3. Stabilize | Weeks 2–5 | Monitoring, security tooling and backups deployed. Critical risks are fixed first, and backups are proven by restore test. | Security baseline report |
| 4. Go-live | Weeks 4–6 | Service desk goes live, users are introduced to the team, and support channels are published. | Welcome guide and escalation contacts |
| 5. Steady state | Days 30–45 | Stable and documented, and your people know our team. The first quarterly review with leadership follows. | A roadmap and a 12-month budget |
Your team
Named people, not a call center.
Service desk
Support specialists who answer your calls, emails and portal tickets, and get to know your people and systems.
Senior support specialists
Network, cloud and security specialists for projects and escalations, on site when needed.
Account manager
Your single point of contact for scope, invoices, renewals, vendors and anything that isn’t working.
Fractional CTO
Owns your roadmap and budget, and leads quarterly reviews with your leadership.
Service levels
Response targets, in writing.
Your agreement defines priority levels (an office down is not the same as a printer down), a response target for each, and how to escalate. We report against those targets every month, including the ones we missed.
We don’t publish a single headline number here, because a 15-minute promise means nothing without saying what it covers. Ask us and we’ll walk you through the actual terms.
How we compare
The three kinds of IT provider, honestly.
Most organizations with 25 to 250+ people are choosing between these. Each is right for someone. Here’s where the differences actually show up.
| When you need… | "The IT guy" | A national provider | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Someone to answer the phone | One person, if they’re free | A queue and a ticket number | A person who already knows who you are |
| Problems prevented, not just fixed | Rarely; there’s no time | Automated, and you’ll never meet the person | Monitored, maintained and reported every month, misses included |
| Security you can prove to an insurer | "We have antivirus" | A framework name and a PDF | Technical safeguards implemented, with the evidence organized by control |
| A plan and a budget | When something breaks | An upsell cycle | A fractional CTO, a roadmap and a 12-month budget, reviewed every quarter |
| Someone on site in San Diego | Yes, when they can | Sometimes, from a subcontractor | Yes; our support specialists live here |
| To leave | Hard; the knowledge is in their head | Hard; the documentation is theirs | Easy; your environment’s documentation and credentials are yours, with a smooth handoff |
| The bill | Hourly; surprises | Per user, with add-ons for everything | Per user, all-inclusive; projects quoted in writing first |
Operating rhythm
A regular rhythm.
- Daily
Monitor
Alerts triaged, patches deployed, backups checked.
- Monthly
Report
Tickets, response times, patch compliance and security posture.
- Quarterly
Review
A review with leadership: what happened, the risks we see, and the roadmap.
- Annually
Plan
Budget, refresh cycle, policy review and incident response tabletop.
Questions
About switching providers.
Will our current provider cooperate with the handover?
Most do. We handle the conversation professionally and request credentials, documentation and licensing transfers in writing. When a provider is slow, we have a documented process for regaining control of your accounts safely.
Will our employees notice the change?
Mostly in good ways. Before go-live, they receive a short welcome guide explaining how to reach us. We time cut-overs outside business hours.
What if it isn’t working?
Your account manager is accountable for fixing it. Quarterly reviews include an honest look at what’s working and what isn’t, and the documentation and credentials for your environment are always yours.
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes with a support specialist, not a salesperson. We’ll ask about your environment, tell you what we’d look at first, and say so if we’re not the right fit. No cost, no obligation, and nobody will call you seven times.