Provista
History of company:
Established for three years, locally based Scottish company
supplying innovative IP communication services to SME organisations
across the UK. The company has built a sizeable customer base over
the 1st three years with annual growth of 40%. This is forecasted
to continue into 2010.
Provista IP Communications is a network-focussed professional
services organisation. We engage at any point within the network
lifecycle, be it Consultancy, Planning, Design, Installation &
Commissioning, Operational Support or Optimisation phases. We
provide expertise across a range of manufacturers and technologies
with an emphasis on converged networking and IP telephony with our
one aim being complete customer satisfaction. Our goal is to be
seen as trusted advisers and this can only be possible by providing
the right choices to our customers time and time again.
Nature of your business:
Provista provides a wealth of knowledge and specialist services to
a wide variety of clients, from the Small to Medium Business (SMB)
market through to large-scale enterprise environments.Provista are
an independent IP Communications Services company, employing some
of the most skilled and knowledgeable Networking and Cisco IP
Telephony personnel in Scotland.
We specialise in all forms of IP based Communications including
LAN, WAN, IP Telephony, Wireless, Video, Security and 10Gb/s Dark
Fibre MAN solutions across all of Cisco's, Juniper, H2O and Nortel
product platforms. We specialise in the deployment of network, IP
Telephony and Security projects as well as providing the necessary
consultancy and project management. Our engineers and project
managers have a proven track record across the country with
customers such as the NHS Scotland, Scottish Parliament, CNR Oil,
TOTAL Oil , Nexen Oil, Glasgow Caledonian University, University of
Dundee, Perth College, Moray College, Babcock, Clyde and Forth
Press and BeCogent to name but a few. Our strong working
relationships with vendors e.g. Cisco, Juniper and Nortel - built
up through many years and many high-profile projects - is key to
providing our customers with an excellent level of support and
technical expertise.
We also provide a unique Remote Monitoring and Engineering Service.
This gives our customers the benefit of 24 x 7 monitoring as well
as access to skilled engineers with an immediate remote presence on
their networks if required. This can accommodate typical LAN and
WAN networks, but the real benefit is the level of service we can
provide to Cisco IP Telephony customers, which we believe is unique
in the marketplace. We operate this service from our Network
Operations Centre, centrally located in Hamilton International
Technology Park, Blantyre.
Who do you currently supply?:
NHS Scotland Multiple Trusts/Health Boards e.g. NHS Glasgow and
Clyde. Education Scotland Multiple facilities e.g. Glasgow
Caledonian University, University of Dundee. Large Number of
Commerical customers SME.
What has been your experience of the procurement
process?:
We have been very successful winning business in the public sector
with a 75% success rate. We believe that this success is based on
the highly skilled technical and commercial individuals working
within Provista, the innovative business solutions the company
bring to the marketplace. The adaptability and flexibility of the
company and its people and most importantly the high level of
customer satisfaction that we provide to all our customers.
We do however feel that public sector procurement models although
appropriate for extremely large multi-million pound contracts
typically i.e. Catalist and PASA are typically honerous, expensive
and unfairly position business with the larger corporate UK
supplier companies where suitably smaller, local and more
specialised companies like Provista offer an altogether better
service offering and customer focused experience. I would like to
see Scottish Executive encouraging public sector organisations to
utilise the smaller more locally specialised companies where they
have similar or better service offerings as larger corporate
suppliers. This in turn hugely benefits the local community and
economy allowing local customers and suppliers to work closer
together for the interests of all.
Any top tips?:
Attend the SDP events, they can and do help you bring in business
and provide a vital source of information about how to bring in
that business. Always leave plenty of time to respond and submit
your response on time. Only respond to tenders that are clearly
relevant to your skillsets and fit your business model. Have
someone else within your company who can review your response prior
to submission Highlight the value added differentiators that will
make your company stand
out from the rest. Always submit professional responses.
Future plans for your company?:
To continue to grow our business and strengthen our position in the
new Scottish economy as the leading provider of IP
communications.
We are actively involved in programmes with the Local Education
Authorities offering Work Placements for Students with the aim to
encourage education and employment.
