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IT Insourcing Strategy Bears Fruit for MJ Flood Technology

MJ Flood Technology, a leading provider of network infrastructure solutions today announced a two-year contract with leading food group, Jacob Fruitfield. Under the terms of the €225,000 deal, MJ Flood Technology will provide an IT professional to Jacob Fruitfield on a contract basis, tasked with providing onsite network and desktop support to the company’s 120 users.

The contract also incorporates deployment of an email filtering solution and a secure remote access infrastructure for mobile users. This approach helps Jacob Fruitfield to deliver on its business strategy of growth by acquisition, giving the company access to a flexible mix of IT skills designed to integrate new networks and systems as required.

“When we did the maths, it was clear to us that in-sourcing an IT professional was a more economical route to take,” explains Jonathan O’Rourke, IT manager with Jacob Fruitfield. “The hidden costs associated with in-house IT administration are substantial particularly in terms of ongoing training and development. Contracting resources from an external provider ensures that we have access to the most up-to-date skillsets and visibility of the latest technologies. As a result, our company resources can be channelled into more critical tasks of growing the business and extending our customer base.”

The in-sourced IT professional from MJ Flood Technology provides onsite front line support to Jacob Fruitfield’s 120-strong user base. Up to 40 helpdesk calls are processed each day with 2nd/3rd level support backed off to MJ Flood Technology directly. Jacob Fruitfield no longer has to worry about providing cover for unexpected absences or staff on leave. “Companies are looking at more creative ways to manage their IT infrastructure,” according to James Finglas, managing director with MJ Flood Technology. “In-sourcing staff gives companies a level of comfort and assurance in that they have somebody onsite, whose performance can be directly measured with full accountability. This approach also gives them additional flexibility to use that resource as internal circumstances change.”

As part of the deal, technical consultants at MJ Flood Technology also deployed an upgraded remote access infrastructure for mobile employees, based on a Cisco technology platform. Mobile merchandisers, sales staff and business development executives can now create secure VPN connections between their pen tablets and line of business application at headquarters, giving them immediate visibility of order history, pricing and other important information, while on the move. This speeds up business processes and ultimately provides the customer with a more responsive service.

Like many organisations, Jacob Fruitfield also had a significant problem with spam with up to 70% of all email communications classified as unsolicited. “We deployed SurfControl, a best-in-class email and Internet filtering solution,” according to Pat O’Neill, account manager with MJ Flood Technology. “Based on the concept of adaptive threat intelligence, SurfControl checks against daily updated databases of spam and junk e-mail. It protects users from nuisance e-mails, boosts employee productivity and conserves Jacob Fruitfield’s bandwidth for data of a critical nature.”

“MJ Flood Technology was creative in its approach to solving our business problems,” comments Jonathan O’Rourke. “We were impressed with the strength of their technical capability from the outset and view our relationship as a true partnership which adds real business value to our organisation.”