Tolva: A Single Source for Integrated IT Solutions
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the course of business operations has dramatically transformed. The year that seemed to be an opportunity to embark on an optimistic road soon started throwing some significant economic curveballs at businesses. A year into the crisis and organizations faced diminished or delayed supply chains, reduced contract services work, and weakened buying commitment. Though the ongoing effects varied across a range of verticals and industries, one thing became clear: management teams are looking to sure-up current revenue streams rather than seeking new ones. Here, a managed services provider (MSP) can come to the rescue. The pandemic certainly impacted how and where people work and brought to the fore how quickly an MSP backed business environment can evolve to meet fast-changing needs. However, the industry is still struggling with the effectiveness of managed services in providing clients with adaptability and flexibility in response to changes in the work environment. It is often heard that MSPs are the client’s “technology partner” or “their external IT department,” but this rarely eventuates to anything more than just being the people you call when you need technical help.
Meet TOLVA.
This Sydney-based firm is an expert in providing a single source for integrated IT solutions that improve business productivity. The team at TOLVA has been providing a complete range of professional IT services, networking, and integrated technology solutions to small and medium organizations across Australia’s eastern seaboard for many years and expanding further across Australia, New Zealand, and Germany recently. “We believe in investing our time in getting to know our client’s people, business, and processes, getting to know them beyond the initial brief of their service scope,” says Jürgen Mertin, the founder and MD at TOLVA.
Enabling Clients’ Business Initiatives Seamlessly
For many businesses in a connected world, network technologies restrict business initiatives as many MSPs focus on selling technologies rather than solutions. “Too often, they hear what the client has to say or what their needs are and then squeeze those requirements into products they sell,” adds Mertin. Additionally, legacy network architecture and systems are left unmanaged with a push to SaaS and other technologies.
With many technologies available to suit budget, internet service availability, and other requirements, Mertin mentions that TOLVA never sells anything to its clients based on their partnerships or sales targets but solely on their client’s needs. With a range of flexible network services encompassing complete hybrid network solutions, TOLVA provides organizations with exceptional data speeds, advanced external security protection, and highly available systems.
Meet TOLVA.
This Sydney-based firm is an expert in providing a single source for integrated IT solutions that improve business productivity. The team at TOLVA has been providing a complete range of professional IT services, networking, and integrated technology solutions to small and medium organizations across Australia’s eastern seaboard for many years and expanding further across Australia, New Zealand, and Germany recently. “We believe in investing our time in getting to know our client’s people, business, and processes, getting to know them beyond the initial brief of their service scope,” says Jürgen Mertin, the founder and MD at TOLVA.
Enabling Clients’ Business Initiatives Seamlessly
For many businesses in a connected world, network technologies restrict business initiatives as many MSPs focus on selling technologies rather than solutions. “Too often, they hear what the client has to say or what their needs are and then squeeze those requirements into products they sell,” adds Mertin. Additionally, legacy network architecture and systems are left unmanaged with a push to SaaS and other technologies.
With many technologies available to suit budget, internet service availability, and other requirements, Mertin mentions that TOLVA never sells anything to its clients based on their partnerships or sales targets but solely on their client’s needs. With a range of flexible network services encompassing complete hybrid network solutions, TOLVA provides organizations with exceptional data speeds, advanced external security protection, and highly available systems.
We look to our customers as our only marker for success
The Only Success Marker: Client Feedback
TOLVA focuses mainly on understanding its clients, their needs, their roadmap and goals, and their people. “We understand that the technology, solutions and systems we support are there to foster their business growth, not ours,” says Mertin. TOLVA eliminates many of the niggling problems that annoy users early in their engagement as that is a simple system management task and instils a sense of expertise to clients.
This allows the company to have the freedom to look beyond those minor initial issues. While TOLVA keeps up with new technologies, industry news, vendors, and solutions entering the market, Mertin says “Honestly, we are not at all interested in what our opposition is doing. We only focus on our customers as our only marker for success.”
This feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. TOLVA has not lost a client since their inception. “We do not lock clients into contracts or services that ensure their commitment to us. We place their requirements ahead of our sales goals, and that has made all the difference,” says Mertin.
Customer-centric to the Core
Being a small and nimble team, TOLVA can work as a tight-knit unit instead of a large group of people where the client’s details are scattered and not paid attention to. The company keeps its process streamlined and efficient, simplifying its management systems always to work well. “We love our work and enjoy providing solutions to problems,” states Mertin.
For example, a research firm was referred to TOLVA as they expressed dissatisfaction with their current provider. This was mainly regarding the quality of the recommendations provided and the length of time these solutions took to implement. Additionally, the service of the incumbent saw them charging for hours of support time. Many of those charged hours were the direct result of the solutions implemented repeatedly falling short of the mark. The client’s business had been seeing growth for several years, but their systems had remained in an stagnant state, only having computers added to a workgroup setting which did not scale well. Also, file security and backups were almost non-existent.
Additionally, the client frequently presented showcases and sessions with business partners and prospective clients of their own, usually from their offices face-to-face and an ever-growing webinar audience. While the incumbent implemented a dedicated setup for these presentations, it was again a patchwork of devices, adaptors, and equipment cobbled together to achieve the outcome. This approach predictably resulted in the need for a technician to be onsite for every session held by the client to ensure that nothing went wrong while charging for the (often after hours) time they were present.
TOLVA immediately implemented core infrastructure according to industry best practice, which resolved many performances, stability, and security issues. In addition, this solution integrated the existing core on-premise applications and systems with Office 365 and Azure, making for a robust and single point of administration that was far simpler to manage while providing great scalability. “For presentations, we vetted and facilitated a professional PA firm to provide a solution that met the client’s immediate requirements, but in such a way that future requests were also able to be met. The ROI on this system was achieved in less than a year,” says Mertin.
"We believe in investing our time in getting to know the client’s people, business, and processes, getting to know them beyond the initial brief of their service scope"
The Epicentre of Confidence and Pragmatism
What is showcased here is that a client-focused, technologically proficient MSP plays a vital role in ensuring a business’ peak performance, both now and into the future. When it comes to TOLVA’s clients, they experience very few issues, and there has been virtually no downtime since the various implementations have been completed. Mertin laments with frustration that many new clients come to TOLVA seeking help, hindered by an array of minor problems and inconveniences borne out of complacency or a lack of growth strategy by the previous provider. “We can surmise many reasons why this might be, but truth be told, we at TOLVA do not pay any mind to the reasons, only the impact of these issues and their speedy resolution.”
Clients today, more than ever, require the stewardship of their IT systems and processes so that they are more flexible and adaptable in times of crisis or challenges. An IT disaster does not need to mean hardware, software, or network failures. The past year has taught many businesses that many outside forces can directly impact where and how they conduct business. A competent MSP can ensure a well-managed environment that meets any potential condition with confidence and pragmatism, and that’s precisely what TOLVA brings to the table.
TOLVA immediately implemented core infrastructure according to industry best practice, which resolved many performances, stability, and security issues. In addition, this solution integrated the existing core on-premise applications and systems with Office 365 and Azure, making for a robust and single point of administration that was far simpler to manage while providing great scalability. “For presentations, we vetted and facilitated a professional PA firm to provide a solution that met the client’s immediate requirements, but in such a way that future requests were also able to be met. The ROI on this system was achieved in less than a year,” says Mertin.
"We believe in investing our time in getting to know the client’s people, business, and processes, getting to know them beyond the initial brief of their service scope"
The Epicentre of Confidence and Pragmatism
What is showcased here is that a client-focused, technologically proficient MSP plays a vital role in ensuring a business’ peak performance, both now and into the future. When it comes to TOLVA’s clients, they experience very few issues, and there has been virtually no downtime since the various implementations have been completed. Mertin laments with frustration that many new clients come to TOLVA seeking help, hindered by an array of minor problems and inconveniences borne out of complacency or a lack of growth strategy by the previous provider. “We can surmise many reasons why this might be, but truth be told, we at TOLVA do not pay any mind to the reasons, only the impact of these issues and their speedy resolution.”
Clients today, more than ever, require the stewardship of their IT systems and processes so that they are more flexible and adaptable in times of crisis or challenges. An IT disaster does not need to mean hardware, software, or network failures. The past year has taught many businesses that many outside forces can directly impact where and how they conduct business. A competent MSP can ensure a well-managed environment that meets any potential condition with confidence and pragmatism, and that’s precisely what TOLVA brings to the table.
July 30, 2021
