SMART INVESTMENT:

MVM Life Science Partners is a leading Venture Capital firm that invests in technologies and products for the life science and healthcare markets. With offices in London and Boston, MVM depends upon their IT for swift correspondence between investors, lawyers and companies as well as secure access to electronic banking.

IT is critical to operations, but it would not be cost effective for MVM to have an IT department in-house. “You would need an all-round IT expert who could work remotely for our UK and our US offices. They would also need to be a desktop specialist, a server specialist and a blackberry specialist”, explains Operations Manager Angela O’Connell. “I think it would be rare to find all those skills in one individual, which would mean hiring a few people to get the support we need. That would be expensive.”

Prior to choosing Doherty, MVM had tried using a one-man consultancy firm. This initially seemed good value, but he could not always be reached when needed. They then tried a helpdesk company but found the quality of service could be hit or miss. “It depended far too much on which engineer you spoke to. We found it difficult to work with that level of service” recalls Angela.

Having recently migrated to a new server, MVM were looking for someone to audit and maintain their systems proactively as well as providing first-class response.

Doherty set up full remote access to the London and US offices. This delivered two key benefits: immediate response in the event of a crisis and 24/7 systems monitoring to identify and resolve problems before they escalated.

“Doherty’s remote support offers us everything we need” states Angela. “If the back-up hasn’t worked or a power supply goes down, we know immediately. If the server has any issues, Doherty is alerted and will sort out the problem straight away. It’s essential that both our offices are running round the clock.”

Thanks to Doherty’s proactive service, MVM avoids serious IT problems. Minor, day-to-day queries are resolved by the Doherty helpdesk. Alternatively, for issues that would be more easily solved in person, or if MVM’s staff would benefit from being trained on certain topics, they can make use of the engineers that attend their office on a monthly basis as part of their contract.

MVM can also call Doherty’s purchasing department at any time to source hardware or software at best prices, or simply to ask about which products would suit them. This has proved to be extremely useful to staff who would otherwise have to spend large amounts of time investigating and pricing the vast array of available options. As Angela says “I wouldn’t purchase anything now without seeking the advice of Doherty first.”

MVM have remained with Doherty because costs have stayed low and service levels high. “If something happened to Doherty, I would have great difficulty placing the same level of confidence in another company.”

Angela O’Connell, Operations Manager, MVM Life Science Partners

Click here to visit the MVM Life Science Partners website.