Convenient, worry-free, and customized for your demands. This is our new business member Innovation Networks explained in a few keywords. Put simply, they empower your business by managing your technology.
The Swiss Canadian Chamber of Commerce is very happy to welcome our new business member Innovation Networks to our community. Since 1996 Innovation Networks offers a wide range of different IT services to businesses in British Columbia and throughout Canada. Their client list includes construction and manufacturing companies, government agencies, school board offices, accounting firms, and many more.
We had the pleasure to talk to Andreas Karakas, CEO and President, and Judith Oprandi, Senior Solutions Executive, to learn more about Innovation Networks and how they give their customers #OneLessWorry.
How do you help your clients to have one less worry?
Innovation Networks helps its clients to be more efficient, productive, and cost-effective. In a world where cyber threats are advancing each minute, our approach is to take care of a company’s IT infrastructure as a whole. We believe a good part of our success lies in understanding that IT services cannot work in silos, disconnected from the human and organizational requirements of the organization and their partners. Our team works closely with the IT service lead to ensure best people practices, operational standards of practice, and IT work collaboratively to provide paramount outcomes and solutions.
What kind of different IT services does Innovation Networks provide?
Innovation Networks provides Managed IT Services (Desktop, User, Server, and Network Care, as well as Backup & Recovery). We provide Cloud Services and Online Security Services with 24/7/365 monitoring, responding to threat detections and incident responses, having a proactive approach towards service interruptions. With our Network Assessment, we are capable of tracking and identifying many infrastructure and security problems, so companies can address them and have one less worry.
A few facts about us:
- We provide technical support in English and French.
- We don’t have a “one size fits all” package – our strength is to work with our customers on THEIR personalized needs
- We have a multidisciplinary and multicultural IT team
We also have incredible partners across Canada who are subject matter experts, so there is rarely an IT request that we cannot address.
When does it become essential for a company to outsource parts of its IT services?
Outsourcing is an excellent option for companies looking to cut costs and increase productivity. It helps organizations to manage their technology effectively, without the hassle of recruiting, training and managing employees who are scarce in the current workforce. One of the most significant benefits of outsourcing is to be able to access different experts for a fixed monthly fee, which allows for not only an accurate IT budget, but most importantly, the certainty that your technology needs are being taken care of.
It becomes particularly important to outsource your IT services when a company is looking to grow and is concerned about cyber security practices and protocols. We often find that in-house staff get overwhelmed with daily issues and cannot proactively manage the business technology.
How do you differentiate yourself from other IT-service providers?
Our approach is different from other IT service providers because we understand each organization has unique needs, and we believe that we succeed when we help our clients succeed by managing their technology. We work very closely with all our clients and maintain a family-like service, which is a big part of our success. The pace of our work is fast, but at the same time, we keep it fun and light.
What opportunities does Innovation Networks see in the Canadian market?
As briefly mentioned, hiring (in any industry) has been a struggle in the past few months, which translates into opportunities for companies like us. On top of that, with the remote/hybrid workforce model, keeping on top of cybersecurity compliance has become essential. Those two real scenarios in the Canadian market and across the globe have allowed Innovation Networks to grow exponentially over the past two years.
What are the biggest challenges for your business?
Business leaders often do not see the connection between their technology and their results. Decision makers are often too busy achieving goals and providing results related to the core business. Hence, IT becomes a topic that goes to the bottom of the priority list. Whoever, we are always able to demonstrate that technology can easily hinder staff performance and, therefore, company results. Downtime not only interrupts business operations but causes frustration among staff.
The other aspect that gets overlooked is that even with an existing IT team, sometimes the details get missed. That is why we like to provide a complete assessment to businesses who want to ensure that technology is being handled proactively and not just on an issue-by-issue basis. The number one area in that we see companies fail is cybersecurity. The time when decision-makers usually pay attention is when an attack happens, and the damage is already there. We work with the best vendors in the industry to monitor suspicious activities and avoid these types of unfortunate scenarios.
What is your connection to Switzerland?
Judith: I was born and raised in Lucerne, Switzerland. After living in Italy, France, Portugal, Mexico and the USA, I arrived in Vancouver in 2020, hopefully my forever home. I introduced the SCCC to Innovation Networks as an opportunity to connect with fun and highly competent professionals. I am happy that Andreas (President and CEO) and Lais (Executive Assistant) have joined our community.
Are you ready for #OneLessWorry?
Thank you very much, Judith and Andreas, for taking the time to give us some insights into Innovation Networks!