Security Support Services   
Client: Ricoh Canada Inc.

Ricoh Canada Inc. is a leading provider of document and content management solutions. Ricoh’s fully integrated hardware and software products help businesses share information efficiently and effectively by enabling customers to control the input, management and output of documents.  Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Ricoh Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh Corporation.

Business Challenge
Bashir Khokhar, director of enterprise infrastructure and development for RICOH Canada, was searching for a support services provider. He had already determined that there was significant value in delegating selected security infrastructure responsibilities and tasks to an experienced IT support services provider that would act as a partner. 
 

“The benefit to us as an end customer is that a partner brings in a different perspective. Everyone here at Ricoh wears five hats. With a specialized partner, that’s all they do. They have real-time, real-world stories of what they have done and learned working with multiple customers, and we get the benefit of that experience.”
 

His challenge was to find a provider with the level of expertise and quality of customer service his organization required. He already had Level 1 and Level 2 expertise in-house; he needed a team of specialists to complement and augment his team’s expertise. He had tried a number of partners, but none had seemed able to put into practice the experience they marketed themselves as having. 
 

Solution
When Khokhar first heard from Forsythe Technology Canada, he was skeptical, even about a service demo Forsythe account manager Jim Villa proposed. Before agreeing to the demo, Khokhar engaged Forsythe’s service desk on several different questions and requested their help with an existing problem. He had seen other partners fail at this stage. 

“The experience was very positive,” says Khokhar. “Forsythe’s technical people knew what they were talking about, and Jim was a team player–very collaborative. So many partners talk a good game, but don’t actually have the technical expertise and professionalism, in practice, when you work with them.”
 

Khokhar signed up Forsythe not only to provide ongoing security support services, but also to help onsite with security projects including design, additions, changes, implementations and an assessment. 
 

“The basic things matter more than the flashy things,” says Khokhar. “Do you really have deep technical expertise? Not one or two of your people out of 20, but all of them. That is the difference between Forsythe and other partners.”
 

Results
Khokhar and his team are now able to delegate selected security infrastructure responsibilities and tasks to the Forsythe team confidently. “Forsythe delivers on its promises. I’m impressed with their hands-on knowledge. Forsythe is an extension to my security team.”

In addition, Ricoh Canada gets the benefit of Forsythe’s specialized experience. “I can pick up the phone and get another perspective on infrastructure and incoming projects, says Khokhar.” I value being able to ask Forsythe, ‘Based on your experience, is there something better to do than what we’re considering?’