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That two initial moniker has taken on a life of it's own in the past 10 years. Information Technology has come to mean the commodity of email, file serving and web services that most business use as communication methods with their customers and staff. I call it a commodity because these ubiquitous services are typically using mainstream products and can be support by any number of similarly mainstream methods. But what about the Graphic/Digital Arts market? IT is certainly a vital part of any Graphics/Digital Arts business, but it only covers a portion of the Digital Infrastructure needs when you're in the business of putting ideas on paper or the web. The core needs of a Graphic/Digital Arts network are vastly different and more complex. The number of specialized machines running your customized design, prepress, and postpress workflows require something more than an average business IT knowledge level to configure, maintain, and tune for speed and reliability. It is this Digital Infrastructure that makes your market unique in terms of support. DI is where your digital workflows live that drive your large format printers, printing presses and media development servers. If you can't go from idea to finished product quickly and reliably then it's guaranteed that your competition is going to take advantage of it. UpTime, Inc. has been working with Graphic/Digital Arts businesses in the Southeast for over 15 years. Our staff has been involved with recommending, implementing, and maintaining the digital workflows that are the lifeline of your business. We understand the language and understand the unique needs of your business in a real world, hands on way. As your market becomes more and more competitive, and you take advantage of a greater reliance on digital technologies to differentiate your business, your IT and Digital Infrastructure needs have escalated. As that's happened, how have you addressed keeping that growing monster of a network well fed and happy? - Is everyone just responsible for maintaining their own workstation?
- Are you relying on the various manufacturers to support their DI equipment through costly service contracts?
- Is your Prepress manager saddled with the additional job of keeping everything running?
- Have you tried to hire an outside service that knows IT but doesn't know DI; still leaving gaps in your coverage?
- Have you resorted to the tremendous expense of hiring your own internal IT/DI staff?
You hired your staff to work towards the things that support your core business and make you profitable. Having your Prepress manager running around troubleshooting network cables goes counter to why you hired him. The idea of having your own internal support staff sounds like Nirvana. But with that comes the reality of trying to find a professional that knows IT but equally knows Digital Infrastructure. You'd like them to actually know what a halftone dot is too, I bet. Then comes the added salary and benefits drain on your tight budget and the Nirvana doesn't sound so sweet any longer.
Let UpTime, Inc. provide you with the hired talent. We give you that point person to manage your Digital Infrastructure and Information Technology. You get the benefits of the internal support staff without the tremendous monetary and HR strain paying a full time employee entails. You'll no longer have your staff wasting their energies on supporting their computers and machinery and they can get back to focusing on what you hired them for in the first place. Your Prepress manager can get back to making his department feed those presses and servers as efficiently as he can as well. UpTime does this miracle of headache removal through the use of Support Service Agreements. Before you groan out loud, read the next sentence. There is an initial commitment to a 3 month contract but after that, every contract we put in place reverts to a month to month contract. How often have you seen that? Initially, our efforts at your business will be far greater than the norm. We will take the first three months to learn your systems and resolve the critical issues that face you immediately. We will configure methods of supporting you remotely and familiarize your staff with how to get resolutions to problems quickly by working with UpTime. We will work with you to provide a point person of contact to liaison between our companies so we are all on the same page. We will also use this initial time to get a better understanding of where you want to be in the future so that we can all work towards those goals and make subtle changes now that will help us both in the future. Then, once the intial 3 month commitment is over, your Service Support Agreement will transition to a month to month basis at the same price as before. Nothing will change as far as our level of service or how you do business with us, but the fear of locking yourself into a long term contract just simply goes away. We earn your business every month or we don't earn your business. We believe the process of resolving your DI/IT support needs shouldn't trade one problem for another. So let us prove our worth to you every month by addressing issues as they come up, but also monitoring and maintining your machines so that minor issues are marginalized before they become major ones. We keep a smaller list of clients in a field with which we are very familiar so that you receive fast, personal, and knowedgable support that you won't find anyplace else. This keeps our business model simple and our focus sharp.
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