A Review of Multi IT's Top 22 Frequently Asked Questions

If you have landed on this page, you have more than likely been speaking with us, and you’re close to narrowing down the options, and making a final decision.

Evaluating IT services can be confusing. That’s why we’ve assembled a “greatest hits” FAQ sheet to make your job easier. What follows are answers to predictable questions we can practically answer in our sleep. So why not answer them here; and prioritize the value-add where it really matters: on problem solving?

This will allow us to maximise the time we spend gaining a deeper understanding of your challenges and explore customized solutions “face to face” or “Teams to Teams?”

Get to know Multi IT & Telephony Solutions better by delving into the following topics and click on the jump links for more information.

What are your two primary services?

Fully Managed IT – Multi IT & Telephony Solutions monitors, manages, supports, and secures all IT systems and users for a fixed and predictable monthly fee.

Co-Managed IT – Multi IT & Telephony Solutions monitors, manages, supports, and secures all IT systems for a fixed and predictable monthly fee. We handle the backend, and an in-house IT resource manages user help desk & support. Multi IT & Telephony Solutions will give in-house IT access to our PSA, the industry standard for Professional Services Automation, and Ticketing.

What business problems do you solve?

We help clients increase profitability, improve team morale, and lower cybersecurity and compliance risk.

We save clients time and money, reduce employee frustration, and solidify client defenses against data breaches, ransomware attacks, and legal exposure.

How Are Your Services Packaged?

Services consist of two specific categories: Core Services and Adjustable Services.

CORE SERVICES are fixed, baseline foundational resources included in every Multi IT & Telephony Solutions Service Level Agreement.

Account Management – Your “vCIO” point of contact for all inquiries regarding services, invoices, technical trends, standards, best practices, compliance, and more. They also provide strategic consulting services through periodic account reviews. All recommendations to advance your digital transformation are supported by network diagrams, IT roadmaps, and detailed project plans.
Client Management Tools – Professional Services Automation, Ticketing, CRM, Remote Management and Monitoring, Documentation, Communication, Notification, and Data Privacy.
Vendor Technical Assistance – We interact directly with your other technology vendors for incident remediation, opening tickets, escalating requests, or working with a vendor to resolve an incident that has occurred within your IT environment. We will also answer basic questions about your environment or provide access to systems the vendor has requested when approved by the client, such as allocating IP addresses for a copier or security camera vendor or allowing network traffic for a vendor service. This covers hardware manufacturers, software development firms, cloud service providers, Internet service providers, telecommunication brokers, printer and copier companies, and local couriers.
Procurement Services – Multi IT & Telephony Solutions sources products exclusively from authorized channels and recommends business-class solutions. We also identify appropriate configuration options, ensure proper registration, licensing, warranty, and guarantee all products are genuine.
Network Management – Monitoring, Administration, Reporting, Domain Name, and SSL Certificate Management, Remote Incident Remediation, On-site Incident Remediation.

If a client has more than one location – with expanded Network Management & Vendor Technical Assistance requirements – additional Core Services charges may apply.

ADJUSTABLE SERVICES are based on specific quantities of subscriptions, consulting hours, or backup data volume. Here’s a hypothetical breakdown for a fictitious, 50-person firm.

Cloud Management – 3 cloud instances being administered/managed
Server Management – 1 bare metal server being administered/managed
Workstation Management – 50 machines with AV, patching, asset management, monitoring, and web filtering
Technical Support – Standard – 40 users with unlimited remote-only support
Technical Support – Premium – 10 users with unlimited onsite support (extra hand-holding)
Email Protection – 50 machines with spam filtering, URL defense, and encryption
vCIO – 4 additional consulting hours per month (because they have an upcoming office move to plan) change to ongoing compliance initiative
Data Backup – 4 TB of data being administered/managed
Microsoft 365 – 50 user accounts being administered/managed

Each one of these line items can be adjusted – up or down. The firm may get rid of its bare metal server and require four cloud instances instead. The extra vCIO hours will be cancelled next quarter because their office move will be complete. Two years from now, they may downsize to 40 people, which would reduce all of their quantities and charges.

How long are your agreements?

Multi IT & Telephony Solutions agreements are typically 12 months in duration.

How are you different?

Multi IT & Telephony Solutions selectively partners with growing organizations that value the application of strategy and budgets to a proven IT process based on standards and best practices – to improve performance and lower risk.

Multi IT & Telephony Solutions creates and maintains powerful, quiet, and secure IT systems by actively engaging and advising our clients in regularly scheduled Strategic Business Reviews.

Multi IT & Telephony Solutions onboards a maximum of 4 new clients per month. This allows us to institute comprehensive, data-driven quality controls – on the front end – which create increasing operating leverage for our clients throughout the lifetime of the relationship.

How do you maximise responsiveness?

Multi IT & Telephony Solutions is responsive by design. We partner with organisations that appreciate the value of following a standards-based approach to inform the architecture and lifecycle management of their IT systems. This allows clients to enjoy business optimizing technology that doesn’t require constant, reactive, emergency intervention – so they have more time to focus on growing their business.

We give all users direct access to support, which eliminates bottlenecks and allows us to collect data and insights to identify training gaps and recommend system improvements.

Our Service Level Agreement prioritizes all client matters and response times by P1, P2, P3, and P4. A significant server or cloud application outage is a P1.

Assisting with a password reset is a P4.

The outcome is similar to the concept of compound interest. When you invest in the process over time, both quality of service and responsiveness accumulate. When you don’t or start late, it’s hard to catch up.

Full disclosure: maximum responsiveness is impossible to guarantee in distressed environments with aging, non-standard equipment, and organizations that refuse to follow support protocols.

Can you describe your technical support process?

Each client is assigned a vCIO-level Account Manager with day-to-day support from a service pool of engineers who respond based on the priority levels P1, P2, P3, and P4.

Tickets can be opened four ways: 1 – via phone, 2 – email, 3 – the website and 4 – the client portal.

Multi IT & Telephony Solutions will provide portal access for all authorised Client personnel to its client ticketing and support systems. All initiated support will be recorded and trackable through the system.

What are your hours of operation?

24/7/365 for coverage, monitoring, and management of all client IT systems. User help desk hours are 8 am-6 pm, Monday – Friday.

We also have customized plans for companies that require user support outside of standard business hours.

Do you have full-time employees or contractors?

All of our employees work full-time.

We do not use contractors.

What is your industry focus?

Professional Services (CPA, Legal, Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, Consulting), Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Non-profit.

We are always happy to extend our focus whenever we meet open, honest, competitive, growth-oriented businesses that embrace the strategic value of digital transformation.

Who is your ideal client?

Growing businesses and nonprofits (20-500 employees) that value applying strategy and budgets to a proven IT process based on standards and best practices.

A majority of our clients are in the 50-150 headcount range. Our smallest clients have around 10-20 people and/or at least R1M in annual sales.

Is there an onboarding fee?

Depending on the scope of work required and the location of your office. The onboarding fee is fixed and typically the same amount as your monthly fee. If your monthly fee is R4,000, your onboarding fee is R4,000.

Onboarding is a very comprehensive process and includes:

The investment of 60 to 120 hours over 60-90 days
An executive kick-off meeting with several site visits and interviews
The engagement of engineers and project managers
Coordination of the transition with your existing vendors
Documentation of all IT systems and users with a 100-point punch list
The creation of new hire/exit checklists
The deployment of management tools and the migration of data and mailboxes
Delivery of a security assessment and implementation of MFA
Introduction of the service and user orientation training on our support platform

What are your project fees?

Our standard project rates are R450 per hour. Projects are scoped on a time and materials basis. Most projects are offered for a fixed fee.

Out of scope, emergencies are the exception. For example, if an executive assistant accidentally deletes five years of email from the CEO’s Outlook account, the recovery timeline would be impossible to predict in advance. It might take 10 hours or 40. We would be happy to work out a discounted rate.

How big is Multi IT & Telephony Solutions ?

Multi IT is a Southern African Service provider with presence in multiple Southern African countries and cities. Multi IT service footprint, product offering, presence, and remote service capability will provide a managed
services model that delivers our the Client’s IT service management and solution requirements given your current
location and our technical skills to compliment your current infrastructure team. Our Multi IT Managed Services
will be capable of managing your day-to-day IT service operations, providing peace of mind for the Client to
focus on what truly matters like innovation, automation and supporting growth within the business which in turn
meaningfully benefits the local community.

How did Multi IT & Telephony Solutions get started?

Multi IT & Telephony Solutions is Southern Africa’s premier IT Managed Service provider. Established in 1986 as one of the first Microsoft partners in South Africa, Multi IT & Telephony Solutions quickly grew into the trusted IT managed service provider many companies in Africa rely on to move their business forward.

Multi IT being 35+ years in the ICT industry has long-standing partnerships with leading global suppliers of IT, communication and technology products enabling us to supply truly world-class solutions to our clients.

The core competencies of Multi IT & Telephony Solutions are founded in its strong technology base and business systems understanding. This strength of understanding business and the required systems allows us to deliver competitive products and services that are internationally renowned for their value and technical support.

By partnering with the biggest and best technology partners globally and through continual assessment and refinement of our services and products, Multi IT & Telephony Solutions quality of service is unmatched in Southern Africa.

What certifications does the Multi IT & Telephony Solutions team have?

3CX Advanced, Intermediate and Associate
Sophos certified network engineers
N-Able Cloud solutions Associates
Certified Meraki Networking Associate (CMNA)
Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)
Cisco Certified Network Associate Security (CCNA Security)
Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA)
Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE)
Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT)
VMware Sales Professional (VSP)

Do I have to move everything to the cloud?

No. We support several hybrid environments – on-premise + cloud. However, the world is migrating to the cloud. Everything seems to be software as a service or “SaaS” these days. As your on-premise server equipment ages, we will most certainly make recommendations about a cloud transition.

How does billing work?

IT services are billed a month in advance because the dedicated resources and facilities assigned to your business are active 24/7/365. Since it’s an “always-on” fixed fee service – and not based on accumulating monthly usage – we need to exercise financial discipline and cover costs as they occur – which is around the clock.

Your onboarding fee and the fee for your first month of service are billed on the effective date of your agreement.

How long does it take to change providers?

Thirty (30) days. We recommend you continue service with your current provider during this time frame. This makes the transition more seamless.

Plus, they’ll be more likely to cooperate with account transfer details if your account is still active.

Which vendors do you support?

Apple, AWS, Azure, Cisco, Datto, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Meraki, M365, Microsoft, Nextiva, Polycom, Proofpoint, Ring Central, VMware, Veeam, Vonage, and more.

Are there any options to lower my costs?

Yes. You can mix and match any of your Adjustable Services. Here are a few examples:

Unlimited onsite and unlimited remote is a premium service combination – covering both IT systems and users.
Your fees can be reduced if you choose remote-only service for users. This is a wise choice since over 90% of user support tickets can be resolved remotely.
You can select lighter coverage plans for your servers.
Finally, you may not have servers in the future, so those charges would go away, and more than likely be replaced by lower-cost cloud alternatives.

When may I have references?

Official references are provided at the agreement stage, a policy we maintain to minimize client disruption. Once you decide to move forward with Multi IT & Telephony Solutions, we’ll arrange for you to correspond with a few clients – via phone or email – as a final checkpoint. In the meantime, please Google us and review the client testimonials 5 Star Google Reviews.

Next Steps?

You have more than likely read this article because you’re nearing the finish line in your competitive evaluation of IT providers.

While we strive to make this guide as comprehensive as possible, there is always room for more nuance. We welcome inquiries to further simplify your learning process.

We’re here to help. Let’s keep the dialogue going. Our team is always glad to help and is reachable online or in Johannesburg on 011 435 0450, Cape Town on 021 879 1950, Durban on 031 331 0735

A Review of Multi IT’s Top 22 Frequently Asked Questions