There are a lot of new faces at Innovative, but don’t worry, many of your favorite “old,” or let’s say, young with tenure, faces are still around. If you only interact with our team members who come on-site, you’re likely only seeing a small percentage of the team. So, let’s pull back the curtain a bit and walk through exactly how we’re structured.
You might feel like you’re seeing so many new faces because many of your favorite long-time employees have been promoted into management or leadership positions to make room for new talent to take over out in the field and on the phones – which is exciting all around!
Innovative has four primary departments: operations, account management, business development and accounting. In this article, we’ll dive into each department’s responsibilities and functions to put together all the different pieces of the Innovative puzzle, giving you a better understanding of how we operate.
Before we dive in though, let's start with the longest-tenured member of Team Innovative: Jason Rappaport. He’s the founder, current president and CEO of the company. The entire senior leadership team, whose names are mentioned below with their respective departments, reports directly to him.
Operations
First up is operations, our largest department. This is the group managed clients might have the most interaction with. Operations is the core of what we do. These are the people handling your IT. It’s broken down into professional services and managed services. Operations is led by Innovative’s Vice President of Operations, Alex Samuel.
Professional Services
Professional services handle the projects. Projects are scheduled activities that make some type of change to the network or anything outside of the scope of maintaining existing infrastructure.
Having a dedicated project team allows the group to stay focused on the task at hand and meet deadlines. This means our techs won’t get pulled aside to deal with service tickets and can instead work on the project which was planned and scheduled in advance. Projects are usually scheduled six to 10 weeks in advance. Professional services is led by our Project Manager, Steve Akers.
Managed Services
The managed services team handles everything that keeps existing networks running and is responsible for troubleshooting calls that come in. To make sure we provide the most efficient service, managed services is broken down into even smaller teams to make sure no balls get dropped.
Technical Services Manager, Charlie Cousins, and Service Delivery Manager, Mike McAndrew, lead different portions of the Managed Services team.
Help Desk
Led by Charlie Cousins.
The help desk is the front line of the operations team. They’re the ones who answer the phones and try to resolve your issues quickly. They do whatever they can to resolve your issue remotely. Their primary objective is to make sure calls are answered and either resolved or escalated quickly.
Innovative’s service level agreement (SLA) states that a live technician will answer your help desk calls in three minutes or less. In reality, our clients wait about 60 seconds before speaking to a live technician.
If a help desk technician can’t resolve your issue quickly or remotely, they’ll escalate it to either an L3 or field service technician, depending on the nature of the issue.
Service Coordinators
Led by Mike McAndrew
Service coordinators process incoming help desk tickets and make sure they end up in the right hands. They are also in charge of scheduling any on-site technician visits. There are a lot of logistics that go into making sure our team is making the most efficient use of their time and travel. Service coordinators know where everyone is at any given time and can re-route the nearest technician to address emergencies when they arise.
Field Service
Led by Mike McAndrew
Field service is pretty self-explanatory. These are technicians that go on-site to resolve issues that cannot be resolved remotely. Service coordinators manage their workloads based on the urgency of various issues and the specialized expertise necessary to work on particular systems or equipment.
NOC/SOC
Led by Mike McAndrew
The next group is monitoring, which is the group working behind the scenes to make sure everything is running smoothly. This includes our NOC (Network Operations Center), the nerve center of Innovative. They keep an eye on client networks to look out for issues that aren’t visible to the end user.
Our NOC works closely with our SOC, which is a 24/7/365 monitoring center of cybersecurity professionals staffed by our partners at Solutions Granted. While our NOC focuses on general network health, the SOC is focused on cybersecurity. Both layers work together to ensure functioning and secure networks.
L3
Led by Charlie Cousins.
Level three, also known as (L3) technicians have some of our highest levels of expertise in various systems. They’re available to work tickets that may take a little longer to resolve, or that require a higher level of expertise.
They’re also available to our field service technicians when they need additional support in the field. L3s typically work to resolve issues remotely but may go on-site to a client location if the issue requires it.
Account Management
Our next department is account management. Our account managers are advocates for their clients, making sure they are embracing a technological strategy that makes sense for their business and is up to industry standards.
The account managers are supported by sales assistants who do a lot of behind-the-scenes work making sure quotes are generated and clients are up to speed with the technology they need.
This team is led by our CIO, Tyler Snyder, who is accountable for not only Innovative’s internal technology strategy, and also ensures his team is providing the best IT strategies for our clients’ networks.
Business Development
Next up, we have the team that makes sure the account managers have accounts to manage. Led by Business Development Manager, Stephanie Hurd, our business development team scopes out potential prospects and brings on clients that are a good fit. This team also includes any content and marketing efforts, an example being this blog!
Much like the account management team, this team isn’t just out there selling everything and onboarding clients left and right. A lot of thought goes into whom we partner with because the partnership needs to be mutually beneficial.
If someone doesn’t see the value of technology and how it can help them achieve their goals, then they probably aren’t a great fit for us, and that’s okay! There are plenty of companies that can fulfill their needs.
Once the business development team has deemed someone a good fit and signed them on as an Innovative client, they are handed over to the account management side and assigned an account manager.
Accounting
The accounting team plays a crucial role at Innovative. Led by Rose Fetters, VP of Finance, this team has a few different functions: general accounting, financial planning and analysis (FP&A), procurement and human resources.
The general accounting team, led by senior accountant Calen Vesper, is responsible for maintaining accurate financial records. This allows us to look at the company’s financial health and make decisions based on that information. That decision-making is where the FP&A team comes in.
The FP&A team is responsible for budgeting, forecasting, and analyzing financial data. They work with other departments to help make sure client accounts are in check. By using data analysis, FP&A can identify areas where the company can improve efficiency.
Procurement is responsible for ordering the products we need. This includes everything from hardware for clients to supplies needed in the office. This role is important because it makes sure we order materials through the proper channels and receive them when needed.
Human resources is responsible for managing the company’s employees. They oversee everything from benefits to compliance. They help ensure that employees have the resources they need to succeed.
Knowing Your MSP
Having a better understanding of the way we’re structured will create more transparency in our partnership. While most, if not all, of your communication with Innovative, will be with the service team or your account manager, it never hurts to have an idea of what’s going on elsewhere.
