While TCO studies battle it out for what exactly is the annual cost of ownership of desktop deployment and maintenance, they all agree that the number is staggering when it comes to managing change and resolving incidents in any organization’s environment. ValCom is completely focused on the total customer experience and providing technical services that are transparent to your users. ValCom's experienced technicians collectively hold thousands of manufacturer certifications. Our technicians possess a broad range of knowledge and practical experience in working with today's fast changing and constantly evolving desktop and laptop technologies. Utilizing ValCom's technical resources can save you both time and money by:

• Eliminating the training expense when new technology is released
• Removing the overhead of carrying additional staff members to accommodate for projects or days when additional manpower is needed
• Maintaining the warranty on your equipment through ValCom's manufacturer certified technicians
• Having an automatic escalation path should a higher level of skill be required

Integration Center
Proper staging and equipment standards are one of the most cost effective areas in controlling incidents and managing problems in an organization. ValCom’s Integration Center delivers custom staging solutions for individual units or the implementation of highly customized or large scale rollouts. All technicians are certified by the major hardware manufacturers and hold additional certifications such as A+, Microsoft and Novell. To be an extension of your own IT staff, these industry credentials are combined with training on your specific staging requirements, providing a consistent delivery of IT systems. Recently, ValCom implemented a national technology refresh project for a major corporation that upgraded 11,000 desktops. ValCom’s Integration Center staged each unit including the installation of additional components and software image loads. Another customer rolled out a VoIP project at 432 locations across the country that consisted of routers, servers and desktop replacements. ValCom’s Integration Center pre-loaded and pre-configured all of the infrastructure equipment, sending out complete plug and play systems significantly reducing the on-site time required by the installer and decreasing the cost to implement. Yet another customer that is a specialty retailer relies on ValCom’s Integration Center to build and load their highly customized turnkey system complete with point of sales systems, scanners and back office system so that the customer’s installation team can spend the majority of their limited time doing training with their end user as opposed to installing equipment.

On-Site Installation
ValCom offers a comprehensive program that manages and implements installations, moves, adds and changes (IMAC) using certified technicians that are trained on the customer’s procedures and technology goals. Often these tasks are project related and require more manpower than the already stretched on-site team can adequately cover. In order to stay focused on increasing their competitive edge, many clients rely on ValCom as the service provider to: Improve the consistency and quality of service delivery Offer scalable programs that can upgrade a single unit or manage large scale IT deployment projects across the country Consistently follow a repeatable process for upgrading the technology that can include redeploying or cascading the replaced IT asset More effectively coordinate all service providers and subsequently better management of service levels and accountability Provide a solid foundation for managing costs and resources ValCom can provide skilled technicians to augment the existing staff or to completely implement the project. Whether it's upgrading the desktop operating system of your department or your entire company, ValCom can bring the properly skilled resources to bear and provide a smooth transition to your end-user community. We can easily move a handful of users to another area or do an entire technology upgrade across the country.

Software Distribution Management
Software distribution across the enterprise requires more than just loading a standard image to a desktop. Tracking licenses for IT asset allocation, mitigating risk through a strong patch management program, automating push software distribution with unattended silent installation and self-provisioning capabilities with management approval are all areas of a cost efficient software deployment strategy. All IT executives are aware of the risks from unauthorized licenses on the network, but according to IDC only 14% of companies in a survey felt they were getting full use out of the software licenses they purchased. That is largely due to dormant workstations, duplications in tracking from upgraded systems or unused licenses which means the majority of these companies are over-paying for their licensing agreements. Software distribution must be properly inventoried, authorized and managed. ValCom has the experience in designing and implementing reliable deployment and technology release programs that drive down your cost of distributing software, mitigate the risk in software license compliance and improve the user’s experience, making it easy for them to be more productive.

Patch Management
Manufacturers estimate that over 90% of security breaches and software problems can be avoided with a proper patch management program. ValCom’s extensive experience and wide breadth of skills can offer your organization patch management procedures and implementations that can keep you protected and fully operational with software releases. Employing a patch management strategy is a critical component to vulnerability and compliance management that can include multiple vendors and platforms. ValCom can recommend the right solution in your operation along with providing installation services to integrate the updates into the environment.

Flexible Break-Fix Programs
ValCom offers complete protection for your computer equipment investment through a variety of nimble and flexible service plans designed for “best fit” solutions from on-site maintenance to depot programs and hot swap offerings. ValCom provides customized and integrated maintenance solutions designed to help companies increase the reliability and availability of their critical systems and networks while realizing cost savings. We help optimize your IT environment by leveraging our capabilities that result in cost savings and the maximum return on your IT investment. For example, one customer had a national service contract using a third party provider. ValCom did a cost and service need analysis and determined they could reduce maintenance costs by at least 50% through utilizing a depot based program on non-critical equipment that was out of warranty. ValCom’s goal is to fit the right maintenance program to the right service delivery requirement for the most affordable maintenance cost.

Block Service Agreements
This program allows for maximum flexibility while fulfilling many of your IT needs. All services and parts are billed against a pre-purchased block of time which can be used on as as-needed basis with the benefit of contract rates. The Block Agreement locks in a greatly reduced labor rate for the duration of the agreement. There is no expiration date or term defined, allowing the client to use these services at their own pace and continually benefiting from the preferred labor rate. ValCom provides a full menu of skill sets, ranging from field technician through infrastructure design and security engineers.

Warranty Repair Services
Manufacturers demand only properly authorized organizations with certified technicians to perform the repairs on your equipment. This guarantees your equipment is being serviced by a well trained professional using only the manufacturer's certified replacement parts. ValCom has the experience and authorizations to properly execute the warranty provisions associated with your valuable computer equipment, thereby protecting your investment.

Depot Repair
A number of clients have found a cost advantage in a depot solution, especially when it's more cost effective to perform depot repair rather than dispatch a technician. ValCom has created many innovative programs to help our customers meet and control their field support budgets. ValCom's ability to provide warranty repairs on all major brands of PC related equipment also helps our clients to control and reduce their costs.

Hot Swap Program
ValCom has created a number of Hot Swap programs to assist clients that have any number of mobile users. The main difference between ValCom's program and some manufacturer's programs is our ability to store various customer images on our servers so that not only will you receive a replacement system ready to ship overnight, but it will have the specific image already loaded so the user is operational out of the box. If your Help Desk determines the unit should be swapped, ValCom will ship a replacement system to the location of the mobile user, even if it is at a hotel in the next town they are scheduled to go to. When the user receives the new unit, they simply take the replacement unit out of the box, put the unit to be repaired back in the box and place a pre-printed label on the box returning it to ValCom for repair. It's painless, fast and a highly cost effective way to keep the field force working with their customers rather than working on repairing their computer.