A short time ago, our IE account team met with a customer to show-off the new SparkBoard from Cisco. When challenged by the customer that they were pretty much already set on a competitive solution, I made the comment that they should at least entertain our conversation because the newer video units were now more affordable than ever and amazingly easier to use than their predecessors. The customer was skeptical and told me, “I’ll be the judge;” so we set out to make our case.
Charlotte, North Carolina, March 6, 2018 – Internetwork Engineering (IE), announced today that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named IE to its 2018 Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Elite 150 category. This annual list recognizes North American solution providers with cutting-edge approaches to delivering managed services. Their offerings help companies navigate the complex and ever-changing landscape of IT, improve operational efficiencies, and maximize their return on IT investments.
Just after the New Year, on January 8th, Attorney General Josh Stein and Rep. Jason Saine proposed new legislation aiming to strengthen North Carolina’s laws around data breaches. The proposed law has many aspects that would make North Carolina residents very happy, but what affect will it have on North Carolina businesses?
Part Four Of a Five-Part Series We’ve been talking about the benefits of working with a partner versus a vendor for the past few months. Since then, we’ve discussed how a partner aligns their goals to your business’s needs, understands your industry, and invests time and trust in a way only a partner can. Here’s one other way a partner relationship beats working with a vendor, they’ll make sure you’re making the right investment. For instance, a few years ago I was working with a customer who wanted to add next-generation firewall services to their network. After investing months in the project, developing the design, documentation, and negotiating the best price from the manufacturer, the order was placed and engineers were due onsite within days. Everyone was excited; it was going to be a major improvement to their network. At the last-minute, word came down from the manufacturer, unofficially thru back-channels, that the product we had ordered was going to be discontinued in the next six months. What were we to do? What would a regular ole’ vendor do? I can tell you what a partner would do. They would put their customer’s needs first. So that’s what we did. We notified our customer, canceled the order, had our engineers stand down, and began to find the right solution once again. The replacement product had already been released, so once we verified it was stable, we redesigned the project from scratch, rewrote the documentation, and renegotiated with the manufacturer. Within a few weeks engineers were onsite and it went off without a hitch. From that experience, several benefits came to light.
Today, the risk of a security incident or data breach is higher than ever. Having an Incident Response Plan is crucial to maintaining a strong security posture so you can protect your business before, during and after an attack.
