‘I have come to realise how sad, pathetic, and miserable the whole MSP industry is.’
‘They always fail to live up to their own marketing hype.’
‘Outsourced IT teams generally don’t care about the quality of their service’
This is the kind of cheerful response you get when you search for an ethical IT company, MSP or cyber security provider on internet forums.
To quote Obi Wan, who wasn’t talking about the IT industry but may as well have been: ‘You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.’
Perhaps that’s a bit brutal. There are, no doubt, some lovely people working at underperforming IT companies.
But we can corroborate the generally depressing picture. Practices such as offshoring work to poor-quality ‘partners’ (we get approached by these overseas outfits regularly), focusing on selling products and services over solving problems, and declining service levels are worryingly common.
The bit where we claim ‘we’re different’
Here we go, you cynically observe. Intersys is going to state ‘we’re different’ and I’m going to roll my eyes.
Well… yeees to the first half of the sentence, but hopefully the eye-rolling will be replaced by some more promising eyebrow-raising as we reveal what makes us an ethical IT company.
From Day One Intersys was founded on values diametrically opposed to the practices above. Fairness and integrity were at the heart of MD Matthew Geyman’s vision for the business. This was a moral choice and, as it turned out, a very good business one.
Of course, anyone can claim to run an ethical IT company and shout their values from the rafters of the Internet. So, before telling you about those values, here’s some statistics that tell a powerful story about the kind of business we are – our customer retention rates.
Our client retention statistics
⚡️ 94% client retention rate (industry average 77%)
⚡️ 8.6 years average length of client relationship
⚡️ 64% of clients have been with us for five years or more
⚡️ 34% of clients have been with us for a decade or more
Hopefully, you’ll agree a company that can post these figures is doing something right.
We’re pretty proud of our support stats too.
37.4m average response time (last 12 months)
192m average resolution time (last 12 months)
148m average resolution time (last 6 months)
An ethical IT company: Intersys’ values
Our values are in stark contrast to the sad tales we opened this post with. In fact, our business was founded as an antidote to crappy IT practices and this, in our view, is why we’re enjoying a reputation as an ethical IT company and growing success.
A couple of years back, we conducted a round-table discussion with the Intersys senior team to write a piece celebrating 25 years of the company. While we talked through the history, the issue of values came up again and again. Rather than precis what they had to say, here’s some direct quotes from the candid internal discussion we had about the business.
For privacy and fairness reasons, we’ve redacted certain information and replaced rivals’ and clients’ names with made-up ones.
VALUE #1: A service-not-sales ethos
Matthew Geyman, MD: ‘We see interactions with clients as long-term partnerships, not sales pitches. We focus on service and quality over anything commercial. We are always winning business from far larger IT sales organisations who have p**sed a client off by trying to continually sell them a product. For example, poor service and a persistent attempt at sales by our rival X is precisely why we’ve won business from client Y.’
VALUE #2: Transparent pricing
Mark Kirby, Director of Professional Services: ‘The recent FinancialServicesClient proposal highlights how we win business from IT sales organisations like BuyOurKit and others. Customers find they are misled about the transparency of pricing (what’s included and what’s not – i.e., the extras).’
VALUE #3: Seeking the best solutions
Matthew Geyman: ‘IT departments who do the same thing day in, day out get lazy. There may be one or just a few people in one environment, which means there’s very little prospect of bringing in fresh ideas. Whereas, when you visit lots of other clients you bring fresh ideas to each individual client. You see changing and various technologies in different environments – and everyone benefits.’
VALUE #4 Responsible growth
Richard Geyman, Technical Director: ‘Growth comes from doing everything else right. In fact, you should concentrate on service not growth. Rewards will come with doing everything right for people. This has helped us grow organically and become a solid organisation.’
You can see far more about our values, culture and story on the Intersys About page.
We love our people and they love us back
As well as our client relationships, something we’re particularly proud of is our employee retention rate. Note that some of the horror comments about IT companies at the start of this article come from people actually working at IT companies!
We’re confident our people aren’t contributing to these forum threads.
⚡️ 6 years average staff tenure (industry average is 3 years)
⚡️ 9.5 years managers’ average tenure
⚡️ 11 staff with over 5 years tenure
We think it’s not a stretch to claim that a company that treats its employees with great respect will look after its customers too.
Charity and sustainability
There’s much more we can say that we think backs up our claim to be an ethical IT company. For instance, each year we support a charity local to one of our offices. In recent years, we have donated to and promoted Haven’s House Children’s Hospice in Essex and Cornwall Air Ambulance.
We’re also trying to show that businesses can pay more than lip service to environmental causes. Through a collaboration with our partners co2e tech, we support three transformative carbon offsetting schemes:
- Supporting the conservation of 39,000 hectares along the banks of the Jurupari River in the Amazon rainforest.
- Distribution of lifesaving, safe, and energy-efficient cooking stoves in Honduras, Central America through the Proyector Mirador project.
- A wind power project in southern India to promote clean energy.
Find out more about Intersys’ environmental commitments.
A last word from an Intersys client
It’s rough out there, but we hope we’ve demonstrated enough to show that we’re different and we do live by our values.
We’ll leave the final word to a recent Intersys client:
‘High level of dedication and service’
‘In over 20+ years of working in the professional IT industry, I have never experienced such a high level of dedication and service from an MSP company. From when a ticket is raised to the moment it is closed, I do not have to worry about the outcome as I know my company is in the best hands possible from the service that is provided.’
IT Systems Manager, Advanced Engineering Company
Intersys is an ISO 27001-certified provider of managed IT services and cyber security, including security operations centre services. To find out more about how we can help you, contact us now.