WHAT
As a global company with employees in over 40 countries, Riverbed, a leading application performance company, has experienced gaps in their staffing plan that require either technical expertise or IT management experience to be brought in on an interim basis. In addition, they needed help defining and implementing an overall security strategy. Difficulty identifying top tier technologists to support their security initiatives had left them without a consistent monitoring policy.
Needing a partner that they could develop a long-term relationship with, and who could provide assistance on a broad palette of initiatives, Riverbed chose Taos.
HOW
Riverbed has engaged Taos’ resources on a wide range of efforts – including executing infrastructure system remediation plans, undertaking targeted technology deployments, and development of RFP’s for Unified Communication Services, as well as CISO level advisory services and department management roles. By having a consistent relationship, Taos is able to quickly identify an appropriate resource to step in to these interim assignments and complete the objective in a timely manner.
To help with their security needs, Taos provided a security advisor to Riverbed leadership. The advisor consults with Riverbed on a weekly basis, helping to draw a bigger roadmap for the company, plus Taos provides them with security analysts, and security engineers and architects to help them develop a solution for monitoring and overall security.
NOW
Taos provides Riverbed with consistent access to some of the most experienced technical talent who are comfortable working with emerging technologies disrupting Silicon Valley. Riverbed views the relationship as one built on trust, stability, and the ongoing delivery of results over the years. As the relationship enters into its sixth year, there is a high degree of confidence that any engagement with Taos will yield positive results for Riverbed.
WHAT
As the world’s largest full-scale data center provider, Digital Realty provides connectivity, private cloud access and complete data center expertise, supporting its clients’ current and future growth needs so they can flexibly grow their business. As part of their strategic plan, they determined a critical need to create a single point of contact for their users. A search for a smart, effective partner lead them to Taos.
HOW
Taos helped shift workload burden from a small team of deskside technicians to a larger, shared team of first-level agents, resolving much of the work volume previously handled by internal teams. The migration of work to a shared first level also helped to standardize support for the Digital Realty users through better documentation and tracking of support tickets.
NOW
Taos’ experience and capabilities in service management and analytics provided Digital Realty with the data and advice they needed in order to lower the overall volume of incidents and service requests. As a result, they are enjoying lower operational costs and more productive employees, both of which help enable Digital Realty to grow their business and delight their customers.
Digital Realty has named Taos one of their Trusted Partners, citing their collaborative problem solving and focus on creating value for their clients as key elements to their successful relationship.
WHAT
Vecna, a software and robotics company offering innovative solutions for healthcare, logistics, and distance learning, needed help with their Tier I service desk. Weighing the development and staffing of an internal service desk against partnering, Vecna realized that identifying a compatible partner would allow them to provide a high level of customer support and care, while remaining focused on their business.
Putting all that in place locally would have been a major effort. In addition to the overall infrastructure, call centers by their nature tend to have ongoing staffing issues, including vacation coverage and turnover, which they would have had to handle internally. Given the structure and culture of their company, Vecna made the choice to partner on these tasks.
Plus, with important government clients, offshoring their service desk was not an option. In looking at available onshore managed service providers, they chose Taos.
HOW
Recognizing Taos as a company that fit their values and had similar interests, Vecna decided to have them handle the Tier I segment of their service desk. Following an intensive, weeklong information gathering session with Vecna, Taos developed and presented their recommendations, and the pilot program was launched.
Vecna’s product is an extremely complex one, with a steep learning curve. As a result, Vecna brought Taos on board slowly and deliberately and, as the pilot progressed and the agents became familiar with the company’s product, handed over more and more of the ticket volume to Taos.
NOW
Friendly, reliable, and responsive are the three words Vecna uses to describe Taos. Entering their fifth year as a Taos client, Vecna depends on Taos to deliver anytime, all-the-time availability so they can remain focused on their core business. In addition, Taos’ adeptness with ticket handling and problem resolution has made a strong impression across the company.
Vecna has been particularly impressed with both Taos’ customer service-oriented approach, communicating clearly and accurately with customers, and their quick onboarding of new agents when turnover occurs. Given the complex nature of the product, it’s easy to tell when an agent is new, but Vecna also notes that those agents become increasingly adept at handling complex issues very quickly.
Ultimately, Vecna sees Taos as a true partner they can count on to help push their business forward.
How long have you worked at Taos?
A little over two years. Beyond the challenge of the work, we have one of the funniest CEOs in the world. He has such an eclectic personality and is overwhelmingly charming, that he is just fun to work for.
What was a tough problem you were tasked with solving?
Probably the most complicated task was to define a cloud architecture within a financial institution and not only define the process and the philosophy of the technology, but also build the team and the vision in a bimobile fashion.
What do you enjoy most about working for Taos?
Our clients expect results. Not only do you have to be better than the existing team, but you have to be able to develop faster and more concisely than what the client wanted. Part of it is that you look around and see what already exists, “There’s a truck over there and we need to build a Ferrari.” It tests your chops a little bit.
Consulting
Taos delivers deep, on-demand expertise across a broad spectrum of technology, including Cloud Architecture & Migration, DevOps & Automation, Systems Engineering, Network Engineering, Security, and Technical Program Management. In addition to interim and project-based services, we also offer management consulting to support planning and strategy efforts within our client’s IT and Engineering groups.
See HOW our expertise can help accelerate your most complex and challenging projects.
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Managed Services
Our Managed Services team delivers support for both IT end-users and the Infrastructure and Systems of our clients’ IT and Engineering/Operational groups that extends their organizational bandwidth and delivers stability for critical systems. Our proactive, shared services model improves system security and uptime and is provided from our on-shore operations center.
Find out HOW we can help reduce costs and improve employee productivity.
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Careers at Taos
If you live to test your skills against the broad array of challenges found in today’s rapidly changing technology landscape and aren’t afraid to dig in deep, we invite you to learn more about careers at Taos.
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