CENT Systems Pioneers in Digitization

The challenge: geo-redundancy, security, flexibility

CENT Systems works according to the maxim of always checking new IT opportunities for their cost-cutting potential and exploiting this consistently. This is the only way the digitalization specialist can offer its customers a competitive input management service. After the initial assessment, the management team quickly realized that an in-house second system was out of the question for cost reasons. System support in particular would be far too expensive and not economically justifiable.

So we had to find an external solution. At a safe distance, efficient and immediately available. Due to the size of the company and the scaling options, the shared cloud model was the obvious choice. But be careful: CENT Systems primarily digitizes invoices and receipts from the healthcare sector. This includes sensitive personal data that must be processed and stored in Switzerland. Guaranteed data storage in Switzerland is and remains a non-negotiable requirement for CENT Systems' cloud partner.

After the first round of evaluation based on the criteria of “geographic redundancy” and “Swiss cloud,” four providers remained. One of them was Sharp DX (Switzerland) AG with its Prime Managed Services concept, ORIA—which, incidentally, was recommended by KPT, the parent company of CENT Systems.

For Managing Director Adrian Tschannen, the next very important evaluation criterion was the flexibility of the partner and the managed services. Outsourcing the IT infrastructure to Sharp DX/ORIA was, after all, just one subproject of the ongoing comprehensive IT renewal. The initial collaboration with Sharp DX reinforced Tschannen’s confidence that he could trust Sharp DX’s ORIA Prime Managed Services. The service was highly flexible, and yet the systems ran stably right from the start.

For this reason, the management of CENT Systems decided while the major project was still ongoing to outsource the operation of the entire IT infrastructure immediately and put the new application into operation in ITpoint's shared cloud right from the start. Contrary to the original plan, but with good reason and valuable immediate benefits - especially for the difficult software renewal sub-project.

The solution

CENT Systems obtains its entire IT infrastructure as a Managed Infrastructure Service from Sharp DX. Sharp DX is responsible for all operations, with guaranteed service levels.

• Through Operation Services, Sharp DX assumes operational responsibility
  Service components: Service Desk, 2nd-Level Support, Monitoring/Reporting, and Service Management
• Highly secure, round-the-clock monitored cloud environment
• Application and data stored and secured in two Swiss data centers (guaranteed data storage in Switzerland)
• Support availability selected by CENT: Monday to Friday 07.00 - 19.00 (5 x 12)
• An internal liaison at CENT Systems submits service and change requests to Sharp DX
• Proven recovery routine for emergencies
• Contracts secure service levels (availability, response and recovery times)

Advantages

By outsourcing IT to Sharp DX, the issue of geographic redundancy in the highly secure Swiss cloud was quickly resolved. What other benefits has CENT Systems gained from the new IT solution? Even a year after outsourcing its infrastructure, Adrian Tschannen remains enthusiastic about the flexibility of ORIA Prime Managed Services, combined with the guaranteed stability of the systems. In this regard, Sharp DX stood out from the other providers by a wide margin even during the evaluation phase. “Sharp DX made it clear during the proposal phase that their managed services are flexible, and they prove that time and again. That’s truly impressive,” says the IT-savvy CEO of CENT Systems.

• System stability and maximum flexibility at the same time
  Adrian Tschannen has found that other providers are quick to turn down requests for flexibility, claiming they can no longer guarantee system stability. “Sharp DX achieves both: it’s very flexible and very stable. I don’t know how they do it, but they clearly can. We’ve never experienced anything else.”
• Agile basis for the renewal and expansion of the core applications
  Depending on the requirements of the software/business side, CENT Systems could and can flexibly change ordered server configurations, routers etc. at any time. The new core application was gradually put into operation in the ORIA Cloud. CENT Systems was even able to cancel services that had already been ordered from ORIA and save these costs!
• Internal IT resources saved
  The complete infrastructure outsourcing of CENT Systems has freed up human and financial resources since summer 2017, which were very welcome in other sub-projects of the overall IT renewal project.
• Transparent IT Costs Based on Usage
  Managing Director Adrian Tschannen appreciates that, with Sharp DX’s managed services, CENT Systems now pays only for the IT resources the company actually uses—a stark contrast to the fixed IT ownership costs the company faced before outsourcing. Sharp DX bills IT costs monthly based on components and subcomponents. “Everything is very transparent and easy to manage financially,” summarizes Managing Director Adrian Tschannen.

The company’s experience confirms that Managing Director Adrian Tschannen made the right choice in selecting the flexible and cost-transparent Sharp DX as its infrastructure partner—not only for current day-to-day operations but also for future IT opportunities. Tschannen sees new potential for efficiency gains in text interpretation solutions. In other words, applications that don’t just recognize letters, but can reliably identify the content of the text and automatically forward it to the appropriate specialist. And, of course, data security and encryption remain key priorities.