London – June 22, 2010 – Fifosys, one of Europe’s fastest growing providers of outsourced IT infrastructure solutions, today announced that it has been named as having the Best Public Cloud Implementation of the Asigra Cloud Backup platform. The award recognizes Fifosys for its success in the deployment and application of Asigra’s Cloud Backup™ platform in a public cloud environment. Fifosys was honored for its leadership in this area at the recently-held Asigra Cloud Backup Partner Summit in Toronto.

Fifosys won the award for its work with the London Medical clinic. The organisation’s previous tape-based storage system was rapidly becoming outdated, and in early 2009 the clinic started to look at solutions that could optimise its document backup and recovery. The aim was to ensure the ability to retrieve any lost data quickly and efficiently, especially in the event of a medical emergency. The tape-based system required staff to physically transport patient data, creating possible security and financial risks; consequently necessitating a more secure solution.
Fifosys carried out a full analysis of the company’s IT backup and data recovery needs. London Medical adopted Asigra’s complete Hybrid Cloud Backup and Recovery Software service throughout the clinic.
The Asigra system works with live and archived data, so London Medical was able to request that any data over 30 days old was archived, leaving only 15GB of data active.  Alternatively, the system could be set to provide staff with 90 days of financial backup.  However, the archived data could still be instantly retrieved if needed, even if a patient had returned to the clinic after two years’ absence.  
London Medical provides some of the world’s most advanced consultant-led diagnostic outpatient facilities for diabetes, heart disease, endocrinology, obesity, osteoporosis and eye disease.
London Medical can now be confident that patient data is secure. As an accredited MSP, Fifosys was able to provide a security statement, allowing London Medical to tender for public sector contracts in addition to treating private patients.  With an annual turnover of £5.9million, the company can also be certain that its financial data is protected, and that business continuity would be ensured in case of a systems failure.   
Dr. Ralph Abraham, Clinical Director at London Medical, comments: “Now I feel confident that all of our data is constantly protected; even if our systems go down or the clinic has a fire or flood, I know we can still get the data back. Our patients’ data is the lifeblood of London Medical and it is a priority for us to protect it and be able to manage it in a way that does not affect front line service or care.”

Asigra leverages the expertise of partners like Fifosys for new and innovative deployments of the Asigra Cloud Backup™ software platform, whether deployed to a public cloud, an internal private cloud or a hybrid implementation combining both.

Fifosys MD Mitesh Patel receives award from Asigra CEO David Farajun in Toronto

“Innovative partners have always played a fundamental role in the success of Asigra. Fifosys has demonstrated the technology and business skills that have enabled them to carve out a position as one of the elite providers of cloud backup services” said Asigra CEO David Farajun. “Fifosys has demonstrated a unique vision for the power of cloud backup and leveraged that vision into customer-focused services that deliver effective, efficient and comprehensive data protection.  We congratulate Fifosys for their leadership and thank all of our partners and customers who attended the Asigra Cloud Backup Partner Summit for their ongoing support in expanding access to the Asigra platform.”

 “Mitesh Patel, MD of Fifosys said, “We are delighted to be given recognition from Asigra, one of the pioneering companies in the field of Cloud Computing. Fifosys are committed to providing enterprise level solutions to the SMB market place and Asigra’s software allows us to do this with a competitive pricing model and a solution that works. By combining the Asigra software with our managed services offering, we are providing clients with an award winning proposition delivering Cloud Backup and Data Recovery services from our UK Fortress. ”

On our new and improved site you will find much more information on who we are and what we do. As well as articles, FAQs and our White Paper. There are also several case studies of our previous projects with more to come!

In the next couple of months there will be further improvements such as the addition of our technology page, further thought pieces and some tools to help manage your IT.

We would love to get some feedback, so please have a look, let us know what you think and also how we can make it even better.

Some companies can take up to 3 years or more to gain accreditation; Fifosys have managed to achieve ISO 9001 accreditation in just 6 months.

The ISO 9001 accreditation is a mark of quality that recognises Fifosys’ commitment to excellence in both our service to our customers and our internal processes. Meeting the ever growing customer demand for the highest level of quality is vital to the future success of Fifosys and other companies within the IT industry. With this accreditation and the ISO quality framework in place our customers are guaranteed the high quality and consistent service they are used to receiving from Fifosys.

Managing Director, Mitesh Patel explains the importance of the ISO 9001 accreditation to Fifosys: “Anyone can set up a business in IT as it is not a regulated industry. This means we are left on our own to produce our own standards. This accreditation shows we are delivering the highest level of standards and our commitment to continuing to review and improve.”

The ISO 9001 Assessor said “Fifosys have been able to achieve this accreditation due to their impressive service delivery processes that have been operated, monitored and managed for a significant time, demonstrating a good level of control and formal improvement plans”

The ISO 9001 standard is a set of quality practices that ensures the use of effective processes that are consistently monitored and continually improved. To gain ISO 9001 accreditation, Fifosys were audited by an independent external evaluator to ensure all our internal processes, for delivering an outstanding service to our clients, were in place, correct and being followed.

Fifosys were helped with the ISO implementation by Richard Carey of Aim Higher, who can be contacted at richardcarey@aimhigher.gb.com or 01634 816 080.

Founded in 1991 and based in Marylebone, London Medical provides some of the world’s most advanced consultant-led diagnostic outpatient facilities for diabetes, heart disease, endocrinology, obesity, osteoporosis and eye disease. With an international reputation for excellence, over 50 patient consultants and sophisticated modern equipment, London Medical promise each patient unique, expert care.

Key challenges:

In the past 5 years, London Medical has grown from an 8-man company to an organisation employing 70 people. Following business expansion, with the resultant increased patient intake, London Medical was faced with exponential data growth and the associated storage requirements. As a busy outpatient centre, London Medical needs to securely store vast amounts of patient data, in compliance with the Data Protection Act. However, this information also has to be readily accessible to consultants and support staff and stored in a format that can be easily but securely distributed offsite to GPs and other medical professionals.

The organisation’s previous tape-based storage system was rapidly becoming outdated, and in early 2009 the clinic started to look at solutions that could optimise its document backup and recovery. The aim was to ensure the ability to retrieve any lost data quickly and efficiently, especially in the event of a medical emergency, where records need to be accessed immediately, or a patient record being deleted in error.  With patients returning to the clinic at irregular intervals, long-term data retention was also an important consideration, so London Medical ideally needed the flexibility to set its own data retention rates.  Furthermore the tape-based system required staff to physically transport patient data, creating possible security and financial risks; consequently necessitating a more secure solution.

Solution:

Fifosys, the UK’s leading IT outsourcing company, had handled London Medical’s IT and data storage systems since 2004.  The company is vendor independent and specialises in designing, implementing and supporting infrastructures for its clients. 

In order to provide an alternative to the tape-based system, Fifosys carried out a full analysis of the company’s IT backup and data recovery needs.

 Mitesh Patel, MD of Fifosys, commented: “When we analysed London Medical’s data storage requirements, we realised that security and access were the two most important factors to consider.  

“We concluded that instead of increasing the two existing backup tapes to four, which would again reach capacity at some point, London Medical should employ a scalable online back-up solution with automated de-duplication of data for optimum efficiency. This would not only solve the capacity issue, due to the solution’s scalability, but would also prevent the time-consuming and risky practice of staff physically carrying large amounts of valuable data to the vault for storage”. 

Fifosys evaluated a number of systems, and decided that online data backup and recovery experts Asigra provided the most attractive solution in terms of service offered and value for money. The existing data backup provider would not offer the desired level of flexibility that London Medical required – the data was simply stored, rather than managed, and it could take up to three weeks for a full data restore in case of a systems failure.  With up to 70 NHS and private patients coming through their doors each day, London Medical needed to mitigate this risk.

Fifosys approached Asigra with a view to becoming a reseller with the ability to provide the service to its end users directly, in this case enabling the company to provide London Medical with the data flexibility it needed.  Asigra advised them to approach Zycko, their UK distributor, who arranged for Fifosys to become a Managed Service Provider for Asigra in October 2009. That same month London Medical adopted Asigra’s complete Hybrid Cloud Backup and Recovery Software service throughout the clinic. The implementation was completed over 10 working days without any downtime to the business. The engineers also only had to spend a 4 hours onsite. Fifosys went through consultations with London Medical to ensure that they were only backing up the data that needed to be recovered.

End user benefits:

One of the main benefits of becoming an Asigra reseller was the increased management Fifosys could exercise over the London Medical data.  Staff had the option to change the retention rules depending on their needs, ensuring data continuity. 

The Asigra system works with live and archived data, so London Medical was able to request that any data over 30 days old was archived, leaving only 15GB of data active.  Alternatively, the system could be set to provide staff with 90 days of financial backup.  However, the archived data could still be instantly retrieved if needed, even if a patient had returned to the clinic after two years’ absence.   

David Galton-Fenzi, Group Sales & Marketing Director at Zycko, commented:

“Asigra provides a world-class service in data backup and management. Other than its employees, data is often a company’s most valuable asset and the future of backup will be as much about security and retrieval as cost. Like many organisations, London Medical has to store different types of data, each with its own security requirements. This is an issue that is easily solved by Asigra’s Hybrid Cloud Backup technology which allows companies to align the value of information with the cost of protecting it. The cloud is an important element in the future of storage and will see continued development.”     

London Medical can now be confident that patient data is secure. As an accredited MSP, Fifosys was able to provide a security statement, allowing London Medical to tender for public sector contracts in addition to treating private patients.  With an annual turnover of £5.9million, the company can also be certain that its financial data is protected, and that business continuity would be ensured in case of a systems failure.      

Dr. Ralph Abraham, Clinical Director at London Medical, comments: “We needed to be able to swiftly retrieve any lost data, or, in the event that a patient record were to be deleted in error, have reassurance that it could be recovered both quickly and efficiently.

“Now I feel confident that all of our data is constantly protected; even if our systems go down or the clinic has a fire or flood, I know we can still get the data back. Our patients’ data is the lifeblood of London Medical and it is a priority for us to protect it and be able to manage it in a way that does not affect front line service or care.”

Future development

The quality of care and expertise that forms the foundation of London Medical’s premier healthcare service has consequently resulted in continued expansion as more and more patients turn to the provider for treatment. This growth will eventually necessitate the need for a larger data centre which can cope with the heightened levels of activity associated with an increased patient database. Patel explained: “The London Medical data centre will continue to grow as the provider takes on more patients. We have already spoken to them about the eventual possibility of a remote data centre coupled with the latest WAN optimisation bandwidth technology, in order for them to increase security and retain functionality. We can offer the latest data centre cooling and power techs that London Medical will be able to take full advantage of, while also solving the headache of hardware disposal that they would have had to deal with once their machines become obsolete. As the MSP we obviously take care of this for them, allowing them to attend their primary purpose – providing leading healthcare to a multitude of public and private patients.”

East London-based PR agency Idea Generation has outsourced its IT management to IT support specialists Fifosys in a contract worth £35,000 a year, achieving the perfect balance of value for money and quality of service. The fully managed outsourced solution provided by Fifosys enables Idea Generation employees to focus on core business activities, reducing hours lost to resolving IT issues by 70%.

Idea Generation is the UK’s largest arts, cultural and entertainment PR agency, and finding the right IT managed service provider to optimise return on investment and deliver a high quality of service was essential. Fifosys will provide Idea Generation with a fully-outsourced IT solution to help the business run as efficiently as possible.

Hector Proud, Managing Director of Idea Generation comments, “Prior to engaging with Fifosys we had tried seven different companies over a five year period, but we just couldn’t find anyone who could deliver a consistent level of service. If anything went wrong, we couldn’t even speak to someone who was polite. Everything has changed now we are working with Fifosys. They are the dream supplier – conscientious, professional, and the first agency that has achieved what they said they would.”

Proud continues, “The service provided by Fifosys ensures that our core resources – namely our staff – are able to work as efficiently as possible. Inevitable day to day problems, glitches and bugs are quickly sorted by the support desk. Our workforce are much happier and reassured now that they can make a call and get the problem resolved. Hours lost to resolving IT issues have fallen by at least 70% so far.”

Managing director of Fifosys, Mitesh Patel, comments, “For any business with less than 250 employees such as Idea Generation, employing IT people with the breadth of specialist skills required in-house can be near impossible. Through outsourcing, a company can have access to a team of 20+ IT engineers who can deliver to their overall IT requirements and add value by taking accountability of IT and the IT Budget.”

Describing what sets the Fifosys offering apart, Proud comments, “The Fifosys solution offers the winning combination of competitive pricing and a customer service strategy that really works. If they were charging me very little but things were dropping left, right and centre, it wouldn’t be worth it – it’s the two things together that makes this investment work.”

Proud adds, “The vital thing was that Fifosys provided a fresh approach to pricing structure. They offered a straightforward service fee, and were clear about how much they would deliver within this set budget. Importantly, this reassured me that they have confidence in what they can deliver, and secondly, it enables us to plan and budget going forward without any nasty surprises – which is something that IT companies have a bad reputation for doing.”

Idea Generation excels in the creation and management of ‘high-octane’ media relations programmes, offering a new generation of public relations based upon intelligence, honesty, creativity and efficiency. Clients include Veuve Cliquot, The Poetry Society, Playboy, The Clothes Show London and Vauxhall.

Proud concludes, “Finding the best IT provider is one of the hardest aspects of running a business, and it is a very debilitating process of trial and error trying to find the right levels of service. It’s like getting the flu, when an IT system is all up and running you don’t even notice it, but when it fails it is the end of the world – especially in today’s 24/7 IT-dependent world. If you’re working in communications as we do, or anywhere in culture, you need to have an IT system you can rely on – Fifosys has provided us with just that.”

 Boutique debt brokerage business invests in an end-to-end IT solution and a fully managed service from IT outsourcing provider Fifosys -

European debt brokerage company, Yorvik, has outsourced its entire IT infrastructure installation for its Cheapside-based offices to IT support specialists Fifosys in a contract worth in excess of £100,000 over a three year period for the provision of a complete infrastructure and fully managed service. The outsourced solution provided by Fifosys ensures that Yorvik’s IT requirements will be effectively met as the company experiences significant growth.

Yorvik is a fast-growing bespoke debt brokerage business specialising in debt, claims and bank debt; therefore finding the right IT infrastructure provider to understand the increasing demands of a complex financial organisation was essential. The fully outsourced solution from Fifosys provides a scalable infrastructure to the start-up, delivering the levels of service required to support the company’s development.

Lars Lemonius, founding partner of Yorvik, comments, “As a start-up, we needed an IT provider that could facilitate a complete infrastructure solution from scratch whilst appreciating the high-level IT requirements of a complex brokerage business. We needed that organisation to also be flexible and price competitive. We sourced multiple quotes before employing Fifosys, and the decision to engage them was based on the perceived quality of service for the price offered.”

Lemonius continues, “Fifosys’ approach is encouraging and we were satisfied that they could deal with the complex requirements of the business, with the right balance between outlay and return on investment. More often than not, you consider the smaller IT providers but question if they are able to deliver the service levels required. Then you go to the bigger providers and they demand a massive price premium for the guarantee that they can deliver, so it was a case of finding the balance, which Fifosys has achieved well.”

Fifosys is providing Yorvik with a comprehensive one year infrastructure installation strategy including a server and desktop environment, IP telephone system, email and information store, network security, and a data backup and disaster recovery programme. This is complemented by a fully managed outsourced service, delivering maintenance and 24×7 support, as well as consultancy services as and when Yorvik requires it.

Commenting on the key benefits of the Fifosys solution Lemonius adds, “The development plan Fifosys provides is integral to our growth as a company. At the moment we have 10 staff, but we expect to be 20 by the end of 2010, so we need to have a managed service which can keep up. And if we do encounter any technical issues they are resolved quickly, as Fifosys provides a 24-hour hotline – something smaller companies cannot necessarily provide. If you have a mission-critical IT set-up as we do then you need to have this in place, even if it is rarely used.”

Lemonius concludes, “What is key about Fifosys for Yorvik is the integrated approach to telecoms and IT. Some companies will only offer the IT side, but the two are so integrated today that you need an IT outsourcer to provide both.”

Managing director of Fifosys, Mitesh Patel, comments, “For an expanding company such as Yorvik it is imperative to invest in a reliable and scalable IT infrastructure from the start, which will deliver return by offering secure and robust IT delivery and allowing the organisation to focus on core operations.”

Patel concludes, “This IT infrastructure should then be complemented by a fully managed service. Fifosys delivers added value through the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) concept framework, acting as the single point of contact with all third party suppliers, and ensuring that IT is aligned with the business objectives of the client.”

Mitesh Patel, managing director of IT managed services provider Fifosys, believes that SME organisations that outsource their IT and, most importantly, their director-level management and reporting, enjoy the luxury of never having to discuss IT issues in the Boardroom.

Utilitarian IT
As IT has become a fundamental component of a business’ sustained success, SME organisations have actually downgraded their IT focus. Paradoxically, rather than take a strategic approach to IT development and enhancement, with board level commitment and clear measurement of return on investment, the majority of SMEs now take a rather utilitarian approach to IT.

Financial Directors regularly sign off the IT budget with limited  idea of how it is being spent or whether it is delivering value. With key decisions left in the hands of inexperienced, mid-tier personnel and no justification of spend; organisations are actually wasting upwards of 70% of the annual IT budget. Worse, they are completely unaware of the level of business risk incurred on a daily basis through inappropriate IT deployments.

With this lackadaisical attitude to IT, it is little wonder that technology becomes a board level issue only as a result of a major disaster – from serious downtime to the theft of key customer data and business loss.

Abdicating Responsibility
Yet twenty years ago the discussion of IT at board level was a given. Organisations of every size recognised the importance of technology in achieving competitive advantage. So why has IT been downgraded? Why do so few SMEs have a dedicated IT Director or, at least, a board level representative prepared to place IT centre stage on a regular basis?

By failing to take IT seriously at a senior level these organisations are missing out on the continual technology improvements that can deliver clear business benefit from a management, administration and collaboration perspective. Furthermore, by relying on IT personnel who have often been promoted to a title that far outstrips their job description or experience level, they are failing to access new skills or understand market developments.

The result? An IT budget that fails to reflect the core business drivers and an IT infrastructure that contributes to significant business risk. Any member of the IT team can create a technology wish list, citing the opportunities to exploit new functionality or the need to improve business continuity. But who is cross checking this wish list? Where are the senior personnel looking to ensure that these technology investments will enable strategic direction or demanding proof that investment in business continuity is delivering a lower risk business model?

By abdicating board level responsibility SMEs are culpable – they are risking the business and wilfully wasting essential resources on unnecessary and unfocused IT investments.

Virtual IT Director
Of course it is the traditional role of an IT Director to set a coherent, affordable IT strategy and then manage its implementation and on-going delivery. The role requires broad skills and experience to oversee the procurement process, set realistic budgets, interpret the results and drive the business forward.

However, in any organisation with fewer than 250 employees it is hard to justify employing full time an experienced Director with the appropriate skills. Instead, where it exists, the role is likely to be filled by a long term member of staff who is still responsible for day to day support tasks and does not have the ear or appreciation of the board.

As a result, growing numbers of SMEs are considering the value of a virtual IT Director or outsourced IT Director function. Offering budgeting advice and director level business-based planning, this external resource should provide organisations with access to the latest skills, experience of delivering strategic IT direction across a range of industries and proven capabilities for overseeing successful IT implementation with quantifiable ROI.

Beware, however, of the virtual IT Director offering no more than a new IT strategic direction and a plan. An IT Director can have been in place for 25 years – but the experience is limited by technology exposure. Furthermore, these individuals are typically providing no more than a lengthy report advising on possible direction. There is no follow up, no ability to implement the strategy, facilitate procurement or measure the ROI.

Therefore, unless someone at board level is prepared to take full responsibility for implementing the recommendations, which is improbable, this will become an expensive exercise that delivers no real business value.

Measured Success
An outsourced IT Director function, in contrast, provides an organisation with access to a team of people, all with broad technology and industry experience. And it is this breadth of technology exposure that is key to creating a relevant strategic IT direction that truly maps the business drivers.

Furthermore, the role of the outsourced IT Director function is not simply to provide advice and guidance but also to support the business in achieving its technology goals. From creating the IT change management programme to overseeing budgeting, procurement and implementation, a key component of the role is proof of delivery. On-going measurement and reporting is essential to demonstrate the value of the investment and highlight any emerging areas of risk.

For example, why invest heavily in business continuity solutions without then testing to prove the business risk has been reduced? A virtual IT Director may recommend the company build in redundancy to ensure maximum downtime on the Exchange server is reduced from 24 to four hours. But without implementing and then testing that implementation to prove it works, where is the strategic value? It is by proving the IT strategy works that an outsourced IT Director function delivers quantifiable ROI to the business.

Conclusion
Too many organisations have taken IT for granted over the past 10 years. As a result, they have underinvested systematically, resulting in an IT infrastructure that is creaking at the seams, inappropriate for today’s business needs and creating significant risk of failure.

Taking a strategic approach to IT is not necessarily about spending more money. Indeed, in many cases much of the existing IT budget is being incorrectly allocated; while an outsourced IT Director function can cost as little as £30,000 a year. Nor is it simply an opportunity to appoint a corporate scapegoat to take the blame for any problems.

It is about leveraging strong IT Director skills to provide businesses with a clear understanding of the IT risk and to create a relevant IT change management programme for the next one, three, even five years to reflect business goals.

Critically, it is about putting in place an organisation that takes responsibility for both defining and delivering a strategic approach to IT that minimises risk and provides real corporate value – and takes IT off the board agenda.

Already providing successful support and infrastructure management to Proud Camden, Fifosys were the obvious choice to produce seamless infrastructure integration with Proud’s newest investment. In preparation for Proud Cabaret’s launch, Fifosys installed a robust and secure IT infrastructure as well as CCTV, door entry and time attendance systems to help with the smooth running of the restaurant and club.

The CCTV system allows Proud Cabaret’s management to access cameras from remote locations, forming an integral element of the club’s security strategy, whilst the innovative time attendance system uses a fingerprint scanner to record when staff clock in and out of their shifts, providing real time data to the office network and streamlining management processes.

Alex Proud, Owner of Proud Cabaret comments, “We were originally recommended the services of Fifosys when we were looking to outsource our IT requirements at Proud Camden. Given the great job they’ve done there for the last year, it made sense to bring them over to Proud Cabaret in the City to do the same right from the word go.”

Proud continues, “For me, the best thing about the service we get is its efficiency. Time is money and downtime can be costly. With a service that means you are always operational, downtime is not a problem I envisage us running in to.”

In 1998, Proud launched the Proud Galleries group with the opening of Proud Central, and Proud Camden – bar, live music venue and photographic gallery – followed in 2001. Proud Galleries is now one of Europe’s most successful privately funded photographic institutions, with up to 10,000 customers visiting shows reflecting popular culture, encompassing rock and roll, fashion and sporting moments.  Proud Cabaret is modelled on a 1920s speakeasy and is an elegant new City destination which offers fine dining and entertainment in surroundings which exude the illicit glamour of a bygone era.

Mitesh Patel, Managing director of Fifosys comments, “Mid-market and SME businesses face a real challenge in managing their IT support requirements. For an organisation the size of Proud venues it is extremely difficult to justify a full-time IT department, particularly as they need support outside of normal office hours. Therefore, outsourcing the whole IT support function to a specialist organisation is not only a cost effective solution but also provides higher levels of service”.