Vlinvesta moves from fragmentation to centralisation

Mieke Waeyenbergh, Corporate Operations Manager at Vlinvesta, says: "Vlinvesta is a holding company in full growth. To achieve this growth and to tackle all IT challenges, we work together with EuroSys. When our internal IT manager left us, we opted to tackle the IT story with EuroSys. So it so happens that every morning there is a Support Desk Engineer from EuroSys in the office. We have two different support engineers who alternate. They do the day-to-day follow-ups and complete registered tickets. In addition, two days a week a Expert Service Engineer who deals with the more difficult tickets, the infrastructure, the service plan and helps think along solution-oriented."

Having several engineers in one company does require some structure. "We work with a general ticketing system. Any user who has an IT problem logs a ticket and that comes to me. I give that a priority or a status and I also assign it to an engineer. Either to a support engineer or to the expert service engineer. They then have to follow up on the tickets and resolve them in a timely manner," Mieke said.

Single point of contact at Vlinvesta

Thanks to the ticket system, IT troubleshooting runs better. But it was an adjustment for some colleagues. "Before, everyone used to walk into IT to address their problem immediately. However, that was no longer tenable. You naturally have problems that effectively have a bigger impact than others. I now sit between those as a filter to indicate which problems are really urgent," Mieke recalls.

Structure across all companies

By the way, EuroSys' engineers not only solve day-to-day IT challenges, they also help Vlinvesta to structure everything related to IT. After all, employees have very specific and diverse needs. Mieke: "Some work remotely on a regular basis, others only have a fixed workplace at the office and still others have to go out regularly for site visits. Furthermore, we use SharePoint to exchange our mutual inventories, manuals and documentation. These guidebooks allow us to work more efficiently and better. We are also in a better position in terms of structure on our server, which is important for our security and backups.”

Regular follow-ups with EuroSys

Vlinvesta not only has contact with the engineers who come over, but they also discuss the state of affairs on a monthly basis with the Operations Manager, the COO and the EuroSys account manager. Every two weeks, Mieke also has an online meeting with the Operations Manager to go over urgent open topics and issues. With the account manager, they mainly discuss technical matters and infrastructure. With the Operations Manager, it's more about the operational and any problems that exist or that need to be addressed.

Good interaction

"Because our infrastructure is complicated, we are certainly not the easiest customer. But the interaction runs smoothly," says Mieke. "They think along towards solutions and they are open to suggestions along our side. We also report if something is not working, so that they are aware of it and EuroSys can take it to any other customers."

What will the future bring?

Even today, Vlinvesta continues to work closely with EuroSys to further optimise IT challenges and infrastructure. "We continue to face new IT challenges and we know we can rely on EuroSys for that in the future too," concludes Mieke. "There are obviously still issues to be addressed, but the day-to-day tickets are under control for now."