Managed IT services / Cyber Security

How Metal Image MD Regained 3 Hours of Sleep Every Night

Company spotlight

Metal Image, a family-owned and operated metal printing company, is growing at steady pace in the last few years. What started in a cramped bathroom in 1974, Metal Image has now become one of New Zealand’s leading metal printing specialists.

Andrew Robbie, Managing Director of Metal Image, foresees entering new markets as the catalyst for rapid growth in the next few years. But this can’t happen without making changes to their IT infrastructure.

industry

Manufacturing

Year founded

1974

Services provided

Fabrication

The Problem

Metal Image was in a long-term supplier relationship. This service provider handled all their IT needs from security to networking. But as Metal Image grew, the supplier didn’t grow with them.

“As we evolved, our supplier wasn’t evolving with us,” said Andrew when asked about the state of their IT. “We felt like we were being ignored.”

This statement by Andrew isn’t unique to them. One of the most common complaints about MSPs (managed service providers) is the lack of responsiveness when issues/problems arise. This is often the result of understaffing or simply poor management.

This results in poor customer service, a lack of transparency, and a lot of recurring issues. Because there are no service level agreements, the service provided is often reactive—only taking action when something bad happens.

In the end, the client suffers.

This is what prompted Metal Image to search for another service provider.

The Solution

Andrew knew the importance of IT in the business. After all, they are relying on cutting-edge equipment like laser and flatbed printers. He knew that without a solid foundation that “just works,” they’ll find it very difficult to reach their goals.

His top three criteria for picking the new IT provider were:

Good people fit
Local
Solutions/services offered

Andrew wanted a provider that’s easy to work with and local to them.

So, like what most people do nowadays, Andrew went online to start his search for a new provider.

I “Googled some local suppliers, found three. We approached all three. But before we approached them, took a look at their website and looked at the people involved in every organisation…It’s very important we get a good people fit.”

In the end, Metal Image picked us to be their managed service provider.

When asked about it, Andrew said “the other competitors were just a bit oversized for us. And while they were extremely strong in security, it was kind of overblown for what we were looking for. We were looking for something more rounded.”

And that’s something we take pride in. We customise the services we offer for every client. We don’t slap on and reuse the same proposal for everybody.

“All three in their own individual ways were quite strong. It was a difficult decision…[we picked iT360 because] the approach we felt would suit us…because the onboarding with iT360 was the most comprehensive that we were presented with.”

Metal Image Today

The relationship with Metal Image is still new. But we can say with absolute confidence that we’ve helped reduce the stress Andrew and the team are experiencing each day.

When asked what’s different now compared to where they were 3 months ago, Andrew said while chuckling, “about 3 hours of sleep at night. It was a bit of a worry where we were before…there isn’t really a comparison because of the scale and the scope of the services offered…and that’s given us a lot of security.”

Without us actually being aware of it, we were completely exposed. Our anti-virus, our firewall and things like that were very piecemeal…We arrived at a point where we haven’t had very much protection at all for a period of up to much as 6 months before we became aware of it. That was the beginning of the end of our relationship with our previous supplier.
Andrew Robbie, Managing Director

Hear From Our Clients

IT that revolves around you

The fact that the initial consultation was free really did help. It set us up for success. We got enough information from the audit to know we needed to invest some money into updating critical areas and it seemed a reasonable amount of money too.

Miriam Milson

Administrator & Manager, Beth Shean Trust

Below is an excerpt from my All Staff Support Services update that went out Friday morning. I would like to expand on this and thank all your frontline staff for assisting so many of our users. To have 100 staff working remotely and the whole organisation still connected within about three days is a big effort.

This has been an unprecedented event for iT360 and all IT providers. The team at iT360 have been tireless in supporting us and we now have at least one hundred staff working remotely in some capacity, through a mixture of Odyssey devices and personal devices…Having cloud-based mail and Microsoft Teams has enabled the Odyssey family to stay in touch and seamlessly continue to deliver a quality service to our Whai Ora.

Glenn Manson

Chief Financial Officer, Odyssey

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How Metal Image MD Regained 3 Hours of Sleep Every Night

Company spotlight

The Problem

The Solution

Metal Image Today

Hear From Our Clients

IT that revolves around you

Is your IT hurting or helping?

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