Recipe for Success

If any company knows the ingredients of success it’s Flavorman. The company’s “Beverage Architects” have successfully taken hundreds of products to market for national brands such as Chiquita, Jones Soda and Ardea Beverage Company. Bottom line: Flavorman makes products taste great. When Flavorman learned about the Technology OneSource program from NetGain Technologies, the Louisville-based company knew that it had discovered the perfect blend of services to support its IT needs. Like many small organizations, Flavorman relies heavily on its computer equipment, but does not need a full-time IT professional on staff. The Technology OneSource program provides an entire team of engineers and technicians to satisfy Flavorman’s IT support requirements. “We are a smaller business so we don’t have the ability to dedicate staffing resources for day-to-day technology needs. At the same time, we need highly responsive and expert support for our computer systems. That’s why we were looking for a partner such as NetGain Technologies to support our IT needs,” said Jon Wood, Process Development Manager, Flavorman. “We had been working with another technology company for three years that was supposed to fill that role for us but had not been very successful up to that point. So when we learned about Technology OneSource we were very interested. For us it’s a really good fit.”

Refreshing Change

NetGain Technologies engineers first analyzed Flavorman’s systems to find ways to increase efficiency and minimize downtime. They determined that several unresolved issues were causing the recurring problems that Flavorman had been experiencing. “We were running into issues regularly that were never getting solved,” said Wood. “It was almost like we had been putting Band-Aids on the underlying problem; we were just fixing that issue at that time and then that issue would crop back up again a week later. Since we’ve been using Technology OneSource, the quality of service has improved greatly and everything has been working very well.” “There were things going wrong that we didn’t know about until NetGain Technologies came along and explained that some of our systems weren’t set up right the first time,” said Sara Smith, Project Development Specialist, Flavorman. “All of those things have been fixed and we have gotten exactly the level of service we were promised. When we call NetGain Technologies they take care of our problems promptly.” The NetGain Technologies team recommended that Flavorman replace three older servers with one new server with virtualization capabilities. Wood likes the fact that NetGain Technologies stays on top of the latest solutions and makes recommendations that will benefit his business. “Virtualization decreases the amount of hardware we have to support and makes our systems faster and easier to manage,” he said. “The other technology company we were using just didn’t have the expertise in these newer technologies. Because we’re not IT experts, we like having NetGain Technologies to keep us current on the new technologies available to help streamline our business.”

Full Menu

With no IT staff, Flavorman appreciates the full complement of services bundled into the Technology OneSource program. NetGain Technologies’ experts monitor Flavorman’s systems and provide proactive maintenance. They also meet with Flavorman staff regularly to go over any issues they’ve identified and to make further recommendations. Of course, if a problem arises the Technology OneSource help desk is just a phone call away. “With our other technology provider, we relied on one person. If that person wasn’t available we had to wait for him to become available,” Wood said. “Having the help desk is great. Everybody can call the help desk directly and get their problems fixed quickly. Before, they had to contact someone internally who would initiate the call to the technician. Our staff likes being able to contact NetGain Technologies themselves and get something working immediately. Plus it frees up internal resources.” Best of all, Flavorman has access to an entire team of IT professionals with diverse skills and cutting-edge expertise. Technology OneSource enables small businesses to enjoy the flavor of an enterprise IT staff at a fraction of the cost. “We rely heavily on the technology but can’t afford to have a full-time staff person just being here in case a problem happens. That’s why Technology OneSource is the perfect solution for us. If there are any issues we have a staff of IT people readily available to help us,” said Wood. “With our other technology provider, we were heavily reliant on one person who knew our system — that was something we were worried about because if something ever happened to that one person we felt like we’d be dead in the water. The great thing about Technology OneSource is that we’re not just relying on one person. There’s a whole group of people with the expertise to support our IT needs. That gives us a much greater comfort level.” “The way I see it, we have a whole team of IT people with NetGain Technologies who are available just with a phone call,” Smith said. “They are part of our team now.”