Superion® Stops IRIS – The Visual Group from Losing Business

One of the largest optical companies in Canada, IRIS – The Visual Group, operating for over 27 years, developed a serious problem within their stores and were losing business. The company had spent a great deal of time and money making sure they hired the right staff, provided effective staff training, stocked excellent quality and selection of products and overall ensured an exceptional experience for their clients. However, they were frequently losing business because their on-staff IT technician was stretched thin and was not able to focus on their information technology systems for the stores. Those systems began to fail and prevent them from physically completing transactions with their clients resulting in lost sales or at the very least, frustrated clients.

Largely due to the economic collapse in 2009, the company started to lower their costs and began consolidating their resources. As a result, the technician who had been assisting the stores as best he could, was no longer available. It was at this time that Superion® approached the Company to see if they could help improve their IT systems, while keeping their support costs under control.

Superion® met with the Company’s President and VP of Finance to demonstrate how Superion® could reduce their IT risks and downtime while saving them money. Superion® was soon hired to take over their IT support for their 79 stores.

Superion® Assessed The Extent of the Problems

Superion® sent out a survey to each of the 79 locations to discover what the stores themselves wanted or needed for IT support. The majority of stores believed that they hadn’t received the IT support they needed, and were unhappy because they had been dealing with IT issues that were not being addressed.

Superion® then deployed agent tools to analyze each stores total IT environment and they discovered a multitude of issues:

  • Little or no patching.
  • No centralized or monitored antivirus solutions, resulting in frequent infections and extensive downtime for affected workstations.
  • No life-cycle management of equipment (some were still using Windows 2000 systems).
  • No standardization of equipment (each store had their own brands of IT equipment), so IT asset management was a nightmare.
  • Countless unauthorized applications such as games and torrent software existed on a large percentage of their computers.

Superion® Built an Action Plan to Remedy the Issues

Superion® updated the Company’s management on the degree and severity of the issues discovered and demonstrated how any or all of these issues would cause their POS system(s) to fail. As a result they were losing business. Once the recommendations for changes were approved, Superion® began to remedy the issues.

They started by:

  • Patching computers.
  • Removing unnecessary software.
  • Installing their centrally monitored antivirus solution.
  • Remedied specific IT issues in each of the stores.

They worked within the budget requirements of the Company to co-ordinate the replacement of aging equipment, starting with the most problematic and insecure systems. Over a period of time (as the company’s budget allowed) they replaced the majority of the aged equipment. They implemented solutions such as HP Desktops, SonicWALL Firewalls, HP Switches and Microsoft Windows 7 Pro.

Today — a Happy Client

Today, the Company’s stores are covered by Superion’s® Pro Plan service package with 24/7 monitoring, system maintenance, helpdesk and remotely delivered service, for an all-inclusive monthly flat fee. Superion® monitors and manages approximately 500 computers across 79 locations in 3 Provinces.

As a result, the Company has seen a dramatic improvement in the stability and reliability of their stores’ IT infrastructure and the stores rarely encounter a loss in business due to equipment failure.

The executives at the Company are extremely pleased:

“Superion drastically improved the security of our equipment by making sure they are patched and protected from all threats. They have reduced IT down times for all 79 of our stores and virtually eliminated all of our IT frustrations! I would recommend Superion for any business that needs help to handle their IT needs.”
– Director of Corporate Accounts

About Superion® Inc.

If you are searching for Managed IT Services to augment your internal resources, or you’d like to outsource your IT needs, look no further.

Superion® are Reliable and Responsive.

To learn more about Superion® and the services we have to offer, please call us at 604.259.7647 or email info@superion.ca. Ask about a complimentary network assessment, with no obligation or cost.

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