Provide a brief description of the Solution or Service provided.
IT Weapons provides a wide range of consulting and managed services. Unlike the traditional break-fix IT firm that builds a managed services portfolio, IT Weapons is, at heart, a business-centric consulting firm that has developed a managed services practice over the past 6 years. For over 10 years we’ve been Canadian pioneers in the development of application delivery, networking, and virtualization solutions for some of North America’s top companies. Every aspect of our industry leading expertise has gone into the development of our infrastructure services. We operate a state-of-the-art Data Centre and a 24/7 NOC staffed with a certified team of helpdesk technicians. We have a certified Data Centre manager and our support team is backed by one of Canada’s leading IT consultancies. Integrity and Industry Leading Expertise We maintain the highest levels of industry certification in all areas of IT; application delivery, virtualization, unified communications, Data Centre management, and network design and security. When you partner with IT Weapons, any critical issues are escalated internally to our award winning consulting experts. We carefully select technology suppliers with a proven track record of quality. Some of our strategic partnerships are: • Citrix Platinum Partner and original members of their Platinum Technical Expert Council • VMware Enterprise Partner • Microsoft Gold Partner: our certified competencies include Desktop, Midmarket Solution Provider, Server Platform, Virtualization and Volume Licensing • Cisco Premier Partner • HP Preferred Partner • Dell Certified Partner Every IT Weapons solution is tested, proven, and used internally by our team. If a product or solution is not good enough for us to use, it’s not good enough for us to recommend. We are also a CRTC regulated telecommunications reseller. IT Weapons is the epitome of a comprehensive IT solution provider. After 10 years we remain committed to the company’s core values as a simple formula for success and securing long-term customer loyalty: integrity and expertise. Our customer attrition rate is virtually nil. Here are a couple examples of some of the innovative work we did in 2009. In 2009 we expanded and now fully manage the entire IT infrastructure for one of Canada’s leading commercial real estate firms, First Capital Realty, with an enterprise value the $4.9 billion. We designed a scalable system so they could aggressively expand from 150 to 300 users and expand their corporate presence from 6 to over 20 locations across Canada. With the fully outsourced end-to-end IT service provided by IT Weapons (including end user support) this multi-billion dollar company can safely operate with less than 10 IT staff. In 2009 we also launched (and now fully manage and host) a cutting edge Cloud Computing solution for IRC building Sciences Group; a building engineering and consulting firm with over 100 highly skilled employees working in 6 locations across Canada. The fully virtualized system delivered from the IT Weapons Cloud has ensured that IRC has an end-to-end system with plenty of high-performance, is scalable, and has on-demand resources to accommodate their heavy computing demands (with AutoCAD and other design software) and their future growth. Their staff can focus on optimizing their business rather than troubleshooting and maintaining their IT environment. The ITIL certified Technical Support Team at IT Weapons is responsible for all the management and monitoring of IRC’s systems. What is notable is that the new centralized system afforded IRC’s staff the ability to work securely from the field or from home-and they made good use of this remote access technology when 2 Ottawa employees were quarantined at home for 2 weeks after being diagnosed with H1N1 last year. Not only were these employees able to access all their applications and data from home, the technology ensured that no IRC employee would be encouraged to come into the office sick and risk spreading the illness. One of the employees actually joked to Fowler that he wouldn’t speak to him anymore because now he had to work from home because of the new system!
Describe what made your Service of the highest quality. Provide evidence of how the service benefited the customer’s business, e.g. measurable improvements in sales, revenues, cost reduction, productivity, lost time due to outage, etc.
locations across Canada, they provide systems engineering, manufacturing, installation and repair services for mobile and industrial applications. We manage their entire IT infrastructure in our Data Centre. Their IT Manager Peter McQuillan said that, “IT Weapons is low pressure on the sales side….Proactive on the support side…Reliable and highly competent on the technical side. IT Weapons is all about low TCO that can be measured.” Consider also the following testimonial from Kyle Edsall, Technology Director for Glenn A. Davis & Associates Ltd.: “The relationship we have formed with IT Weapons has been an invaluable one. Our company was outgrowing many of the technologies already in place and reliable expertise was required to help form new solutions. Our initial contact was in pursuance of a Citrix application delivery solution however it was quickly apparent that the depth of knowledge they possessed could be useful in many more areas. Within months they became, and continue to be to this day, our #1 provider of IT service and solutions. IT Weapons has been essential in integrating and supporting technologies such as: Citrix, EqualLogic, HP DL Servers, Active Directory, VMware, and a number of additional Windows-based server environments. They have also taken over escalated support for our Cisco network backbone, WatchGuard firewalls, and have even come in handy with email and internet related issues. IT Weapons’ impact on our organization has been staggering as the solutions recommended and implemented by them have exceeded our expectations. They have provided us with a very reliable place to turn to for consultation as their range of expertise is extensive and always honest. I can say I personally appreciate my Sales Representative’s no pressure style which is rare in the IT service industry. The professionalism of the technicians I have interacted with has been stellar as well. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend IT Weapons to anyone in need of a highly competent and reliable technology partner.” Here is another from Todd Smeed, Manager of Information Systems at Benecaid Health Benefit Solutions: “The IT Weapons team has consistently delivered outstanding results. They assisted Benecaid with the expansion of our business-critical technology infrastructure which has enabled us to better serve our customers. The breadth and flexibility of their service offering, their focus on customer service and understanding of leading edge technology made IT Weapons an ideal choice for our technology partner.” From Douglas Kong, CFO of Weston Forest Group, another of our Managed Services customers. He remarked that: “IT Weapons stands out in my mind as an organization whose technical expertise, integrity, and level of customer service is second to none.” And finally, consider another reflection from George Fowler, IT Manager at IRC Building Sciences Group: “Its not like IT Weapons invented Citrix or virtualization technology, but they consistently have the resources I need to make things happen. They had the expertise to guide IRC’s decisions and develop a system that is virtualized, centralized, and provides high availability. That is the future … that is where the IT industry should be going. The reality is that IT Weapons might have made more money if IRC bought a whole bunch of racks and physical servers up front. But they acted in our best interests rather than just looking for a short term gain; getting us to dish out a bunch of money. IT Weapons helped us make the best business-minded choice.” IT Weapons has always been focused on business needs first. This is a great illustration of the core values that sets IT Weapons apart from our competitors and ensures and commitment to honest service: integrity and expertise.
Describe how services were delivered in a timely fashion and/or how response to a crisis was over and above the accepted norm?
What better impact to people than supporting an organization that saves lives. Very few competitors can say they put their reputation on the line every day managing the production systems and support infrastructure for an organization responsible for critical 911 care and ambulatory service. In 2009 we performed various system upgrades for Ornge’s communications and messaging infrastructure. We implemented and now fully manage their Citrix and Microsoft Exchange infrastructure. Consider the following from Andrew Lemon, Director of Performance and Information Management at Ornge Ornge is the sole provider of aeromedical and critical care interfacility land transport for the province of Ontario. In addition to providing transport medicine in the field, the Ornge Communications Centre (OCC) also determines the most appropriate level of paramedic and mode of transportation (fixed, rotor, land) . The OCC is essential in coordinating the movement and activities of transport medicine in the province of Ontario. Ornge is the glue that holds Ontario’s health care system together – linking centres of excellence with communities throughout the province. A failure in the OCC would have an immediate and direct impact on Ornge’s ability to provide these important services. Ornge required a partner who understood Ornge’s mission and shared our values and commitment to excellence. A proven track record and willingness to adapt was key in identifying a partner. IT Weapons impressed all of us with their responsiveness and commitment to identifying the best solution for Ornge. In addition to providing support services for specific applications such as Exchange and Citrix, ITW also hosts Ornge’s alternate workspace for the OCC and provides full redundancy capability to the primary site. The alternate workspace has been used a number of times as part of planned activities and it has been ready quickly and functioned smoothly throughout its activation. This flexibility has allowed Ornge the capacity to complete a number of projects impacting the OCC with no interruption in service to the patients of Ontario. While we have not yet had to use the facility in an unplanned event, we are confident that it will function as designed.” We provide Ornge with a fully functional alternate workspace near our offices in Mississauga. The facility is equipped with 20 thin client workstations, full business services including printers and fax machine, showers, kitchen, generator backup power, and emergency Helpdesk. The alternate workspace has a gigabit WAN link and a 100 meg wireless connection to our DC. Since their phone system was so important-given that paramedics are constantly in contact with the ambulances and hospitals-we also provided the OCC staff with an N+1 redundant VoIP phone system from ShoreTel. One of the best features of the ShoreTel system is the ability to automatically failover to our alternate workspace in the case of a disruption at their main office. The OCC’s staff phone extensions can migrate immediately to the alternate facility and the OCC staff can avoid reliance on public cell phone systems to maintain contact with their ambulatory care givers in the field.
Describe how your services go beyond competitors to satisfy the needs of your customer(s).
Provide examples or evidence of how your services are the better and why.Everything at IT Weapons revolves around our Core Values: Integrity and Expertise. Those are the cornerstone of a long-term successful relationship with customers, and sadly, that is a rare thing in the IT industry where sales folks and marketers have a long history of over-promising and under-delivering. How do we build integrity and trust? Most organizations have sales quotas and work on commission. IT Weapons does not. So before we make any recommendations, we take time to understand the business requirements of our customers. As our President, Jason MacBean likes to say, “we don’t sell products, we solve problems.” We strive to earn our customers’ trust by providing objective consulting advice; focusing on delivering low total cost of ownership (TCO) and high return on investment (ROI) environments, rather than product sales. Compared to our competitors, our sales cycle is drastically lower (average cycle is a month). The reason is because our customers get immediate access to fast, honest, solution-based advice from a senior technical expert, and in most cases our President and Chief Architect himself is that the first customer meeting. Consider the following from Anjay Kuarsingh, Network Administrator for Body Blue, “When Body Blue began considering server virtualization and storage upgrades for our data centre, IT Weapons was at the top of the list. With immediate access to their senior consultants, I was confident that Body Blue had chosen the right IT partner. Before any purchasing decisions were made, I was able to sit down with their Chief Architect so they could understand our business needs and ensure that Body Blue gets the highest value for our IT investment.” The evidence of our exemplary service is also striking when you consider the size and profile of some our customers. Consider the fact that First Capital Realty, a $4.9 Billion company with 300 people in over 20 locations across Canada can safely operate with an internal IT team of less than 10 people (4 of them application developers, rather than system administrators). How do they do it? They trust the IT Weapons team of just 44 people to manage, monitor, and support their entire IT system in our Data Centre. Since we are business-focused from the start, our clients find tremendous value from the comprehensive quarterly executive meetings we hold with First Capital’s team. These meetings include a detailed analysis of activity, and provide consulting and pricing as necessary for upcoming budget forecasting. First Capital Realty’s team has access to a whole team of technology professionals with various skill sets. And because the IT Weapons team is 44 people strong, we are small enough to remain nimble and flexible when it comes to accommodating customer demands. The enterprise class resources we provide with a small agile team means that we can respond with the care and speed that no competitor in Canada in this space is able to provide. The only other Canadian IT companies with the same level of expertise or Data Centre resources have hundreds of employees and their executive team is largely inaccessible to most clients. When it comes to pound-for-pound expertise, service, and customer response times, the reality is that large IT service companies like Bell, IBM Global Services, and SunGard simply cannot match us. As our CEO Ted Garner likes to say, ‘IT Weapons’ success is proof that it is not the big that eat the small … but rather, the fast that eat the slow.” We also offer a wide range of value-add services to our customers that really set us apart. For example, in 2009 we launched a timely new reporting resource for each of Data Centre customers who have implemented virtualization projects and consolidated their server workloads, we provide them with reports on the energy saved by their virtualization efforts. Consider the following from the Director of IT at Kinark Child and Family Services, Joseph Haynes, “Green initiatives are increasingly important in Kinark’s operating strategy, but we were having trouble identifying how to measure the environmental impact of our Information Technology. IT Weapons was able to analyze our system and summarize the results of our recent power-savings and cost reduction projects. When we presented the IT Weapons Green Report to our board of directors, they were very impressed, very excited, and very pleased. I want to thank everyone at IT Weapons for doing such a great job.”