IT Outsourcing: Your IT Systems Managed by Our Engineers
From the second and third tiers behind your team—or in its placeServers, Microsoft 365, Azure, workstations, identities, email, and telephony: monitored, patched, and troubleshot under a service contract that specifies response times before an incident occurs. The service is provided from our three offices in French-speaking Switzerland by engineers who also build these environments. No one opens a ticket on the other side of the world.
It's not the breakdown that costs the most
An IT team doesn't fall apart because of a single incident. It wears down from the recurring issues, the things no one has time to look at, and the days when there's only one person left to respond.
Only one person knows
An administrator knows the domain controller's password, the specifics of the management application, and the order in which systems must be restarted. He goes away for two weeks, and decisions are put on hold until he returns.
A skill that depends on a single person is not a skill— it's a risk.
The patch is waiting for a weekend that never comes
Security updates, version upgrades, end-of-support for a server: everything is identified, everything is put on hold. The quarterly project takes priority, and it takes priority every quarter.
What is never planned ends up happening anyway.
The alert is triggered after the user makes a call
A monitoring tool exists—or existed. Alert messages are sent to a folder that no one opens, and it’s the first person to arrive in the morning who discovers that the backup has been failing for eleven days.
An alert that no one reads is no better than no alert at all.
None of these three situations can be resolved by buying yet another tool. They are resolved by backing your team with engineers who do this work all day long, at various companies—and by deciding in advance who is responsible for what, within what timeframe, and to what extent they are authorized to act.
You choose what to delegate
IT outsourcing isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. There are three forms to choose from, and they can be combined. What matters is knowing, before signing, who is responsible for what.
Reinforcing Your Team
Your team remains in charge of day-to-day operations. We handle the second and third levels: issues your team cannot resolve, those requiring a specialist, and opening a support ticket with the software vendor through our partner agreements.
For an existing in-house team that spends its days putting out fires.
Part of your IT infrastructure—in its entirety
Part of the environment is handled entirely by us: messaging and identities, or telephony, or the server room. You keep the rest, and the boundary between the two is clearly defined, not just assumed.
For a team that wants to spend more time on a specific topic, often one that nobody likes.
Your Entire IT Infrastructure
You don't have an IT team, or you don't want to build one. We handle everything, from workstations to servers, and your management team has a single point of contact for the entire system.
For a company whose IT systems need to function smoothly without becoming one of its core business areas.
Most projects start with a small scope or limited scope, and then expand. Starting small is a good way to see if we work well together, and it costs nothing more than waiting: the contract is expanded through an amendment, without having to start the assessment all over again.
Who you're talking to, and who is calling the software provider
A service contract is only as good as the path an incident takes. Here’s ours: a single point of contact, two levels of engineers, and a case opened with the software vendor through our partner contracts rather than through your subscription.
Two things are worth noting along the way. First, monitoring comes in through the same channel as your users: an alert creates a ticket with a timer that starts running, just like a call—which is the only way to avoid the inbox that no one opens. Second, when we need to escalate an issue to the software vendor, we’re the ones who contact them, through our partner agreements with Microsoft, Dell, 3CX and Luware —you don’t have to contact them yourself or wait in the general queue.
A contract, not a gesture of goodwill
What sets a service contract apart from a phone number is that everything is laid out in writing before an incident occurs. Here are the six points that will be decided together with you and that will be included in your contract.
Our response hours
5×8 on business days, or 24/7 with on-call duty. The choice is made on a per-site basis: the mailroom does not necessarily require the same hours as a production line.
Priority Levels
What holds the company back, what holds a person back, what can wait. Defined together with you, using examples from your own organization—not a template copied from another client.
The time frame for an initial response
The time it takes for someone to have your file in hand and let you know. That’s the timeframe we’re committed to: it depends entirely on us.
The Target Recovery Timeframe
Stated by priority level, and stated as a goal: a disk that is supposed to come from the supplier is not bound by a contract. What matters is what we do while we wait.
The channel, and who has the right to call
A single point of contact, designated authorized personnel, what happens at night, and what might trigger on-call duty. Without this list, a 24/7 contract turns into constant on-call duty for everyone.
Who decides to move up a level?
After how long, based on what criteria, and to what extent—including for the software vendor. Once this point is clearly stated, it prevents discussions at the worst possible moment.
These turnaround times vary from one company to another: they are determined based on what your business can actually handle, and they are reviewed once a year. We include them as specific figures in the proposal, along with what each tier entails on our end—because a short turnaround time requires organizational effort, not just a promise.
What Is Included in the Contract
Six families. Each one is handled individually, and each is described in the contract, which includes service hours, deadlines, and a list of what is monitored.
Servers, Storage, and Server Room
Physical and virtual servers, hypervisors, storage arrays, local area networks. Patches, versions, storage capacity filling up, hardware reaching the end of its warranty—and replacing it before a failure occurs rather than after.
Microsoft 365 and Azure
Your tenant: licenses, mailboxes, files, shared folders, and backups of the service’s data. For Azure : resources, machine patches, backups, and the invoice reviewed monthly rather than once a year.
Workstations and Mobile Devices
Registration of a new workstation, image, applications, compliance rules, patches, and the upgrade to the current version of Windows before it reaches end-of-support. A device fleet managed from a single location, and new hires equipped on their first day.
Identities, Access, and Logs
The directory, strong authentication, conditional access, administrative privileges granted for a specific task and for a limited time, and retained logs. And when employees leave, access is truly revoked—on the same day, not at the next inventory.
Telephony and Contact Centers
The numbering plan, session controllers, call queues, terminals, and meeting rooms. This is the area where we’re not just system integrators: we publish NexTeams365 because the tools needed for system operation were lacking.
Backup and Recovery
Backup processes monitored one by one, the vault that can no longer be modified, and real-world test restores: on hardware that is not the original, with a stopwatch, right up until a file is opened. A backup that has not been restored is just a hypothesis.
Delegate the work, not the decision
Outsourcing your operations doesn't mean losing control over your IT. Four things remain under your control, and the contract specifies them.
Technical Architecture Choices
We make proposals, provide cost estimates, and tell you what we would do if we were in your shoes, even when it’s not in our best interest. You make the call, and the decision is documented along with what it entails and what it rules out.
Budgets
No purchase, license, or scope expansion goes ahead without your approval. The contract specifies who signs what and at what threshold—including for emergency replacement equipment, where approval is given over the phone and confirmed later.
Access rights, and the ability to revoke them
Our administrative accounts are named and tracked, and you can close them without asking us. You retain ownership of your tenant, your subscriptions, and your domain names: nothing that belongs to you is registered in our name.
Liability
It remains under your direction, and no contract can take it away. What can be delegated is the technical work and the preparation of supporting documentation: logs, reports, restoration test reports—the kinds of documents you need to be able to show an auditor or a client who has commissioned the work.
How Does an Operating Agreement Begin?
We do not commit to deadlines for an environment that we have not yet launched. There is a handover phase; it is short, and it comes at a cost—but it is what makes the contract viable going forward.
The Initial Inventory
What’s running, where, on which version, and when support ends. What depends on what. What doesn’t have a backup. We open up the machines and read the logs: a declarative inventory isn’t enough.
Access and Accounts
Administrative accounts set up for us, tracked, with the secrets stored in a safe rather than in a spreadsheet. And the list of access credentials that no one should have anymore—former contractors, former employees, service accounts not assigned to anyone.
It is often the first visible step toward getting things in order during a term in office, and it costs nothing other than diligence.
The Operations Manual
What to do when a particular service goes down, in what order to restart it, who to notify, what number to call at the service provider, and where the licenses are. Written with the person who knows this today, while they’re still here.
This is the step everyone puts off, and it’s the one that determines whether an incident lasts twenty minutes or a whole day.
Alerts that reach us first
Focused on what matters to your business, not on everything that’s measurable. Alerts are sent to us first, and we create a case with a timer that starts running. A threshold that triggers for no reason isn’t a minor detail—it’s a threshold that needs to be corrected; otherwise, no one will pay attention to it anymore.
Commissioning
The contract takes effect, the deadlines begin, and the service desk is open to authorized individuals. The first report is due after one month, and it is reviewed with you—not sent out.
What You Need to Know Before Signing
Six points we’d rather bring up now. None of them has ever caused anyone to give up; on the other hand, finding out about them in the third month ruins a term in office for good.
We do not commit to any deadlines until after the inventory has been completed
Taking over an environment that we didn't build ourselves is the most common scenario, and that's not a problem: the initial inventory exists precisely for that purpose. What isn't possible is announcing deadlines before we've even opened it.
In other words: the ticket window can open right away, with provisional deadlines, and the final deadlines will be set once the inventory is complete.
If it isn't monitored, it isn't covered
A service not included in the scope may go down without anyone being notified. That is why the list of what is monitored is part of the contract, and not a technical appendix that no one reads.
It's reviewed every time something changes at your company—a new server is added, a new application is launched, or a new website goes live. Adding one more line to the contract takes five minutes.
An operating contract does not make up for a technical debt
A server that’s no longer supported, an application whose provider has gone out of business, a backup that’s never been restored: we can maintain them, but we can’t make them secure. A service contract doesn’t change the nature of what it monitors.
The inventory will list what needs to be replaced, along with a schedule and a cost estimate. You decide the pace, and there’s no requirement to do everything in the first year.
24/7 is justified by your business needs, not as a matter of principle
A night-time on-call shift comes at a cost, and it has to be worth it. In an office environment that is closed from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., it costs money without providing any benefit.
We’ll say so, and we’ll suggest the opposite when the opposite is true: a production line, a daycare center, or a site on the other side of the world more than justifies an on-call schedule—and sometimes within a single area.
Applying a patch might break something
This is true for everyone, and denying it would be suspicious. We test whatever can be tested, plan the rest within a timeframe agreed upon with you, and prepare a rollback before implementing the changes.
What's not acceptable is finding out about it afterward. A maintenance window has to be scheduled; it doesn't just pop up the next day.
You can switch providers, and you can start making the arrangements as early as the first month
The operations manual, procedures, inventories, and identifiers belong to you, and they are kept up to date throughout the term of the contract—not recompiled on the day notice is given.
Reversibility that is only being prepared during the final month is not true reversibility. It is also the best guarantee that the mandate will continue for good reasons.
You’re looking for an engineer to join your team, not an operating contract
This service is also available, and it’s not IT outsourcing: a systems, network , or telecommunications engineer who joins your team and works under your supervision for a fixed period. It’s the right solution when you know what needs to be done but need an extra pair of skilled hands.
Lambert Consulting SA has been authorized to provide temporary staffing services by the canton and the federal government since 2018. The two go hand in hand: on-site support during a construction project, followed by an operating contract.
The delegation of engineersQuestions We Are Asked
The ones who come back for the first date, in the order in which they arrive.
Are you taking over infrastructure that you didn't build?
No. Most of the environments we operate were set up by someone else—sometimes twenty years ago, sometimes by several successive service providers. That is exactly what the initial inventory is for.
Where are the people who respond?
Our IT outsourcing services are provided from French-speaking Switzerland: Renens, Sion , and Châtel-Saint-Denis . You’ll speak with engineers who work in your region, and the same people can come on-site when an incident cannot be resolved remotely.
What will be the role of our in-house IT specialist?
In most roles, he stays on, and his work changes: he stops putting out fires and takes on the issues that no one else can handle—the business applications, the users, and the company's projects.
The contract specifies what is his responsibility and what is ours. It also prevents an incident from being left unassigned because each party thought the other had taken responsibility for it.
How long does it take for the contract to become active?
The inventory and the operations manual take a few weeks to complete, depending on the size of the fleet and the number of sites. The service desk, however, can open right away, with temporary wait times until operations resume: no one will be left without a number to call during that month.
Will you continue to work with our current service provider during the transition?
Yes, when possible—and we ask that this be done—a handover always goes smoother when both parties communicate with each other, if only to discuss passwords and carrier contracts.
When that's not possible, the inventory is done without him. It takes longer, but it never holds things up.
Do you also support our business applications?
We maintain the infrastructure on which they run—servers, databases, access, and backups—and we work with you to report incidents to their provider. However, we do not develop business applications under the terms of the operating agreement.
The design, integration, and development of business applications are handled by our other department, which has its own teams and projects: Business Solutions. When a project involves both, which happens often, a single company is responsible.
Three pages for further reading
What is required under an operating agreement, and what we have already accomplished.
Infrastructure and Cloud
The nine tasks that can be commissioned—ranging from inventory to operations—and the order in which they follow one another.
View the department The EvidenceOur client projects
Built, reconstructed, and maintained environments, along with what actually happened and what we learned from it.
View projects DetailsAll our technologies
Every product in the lineup has its own page: what it does, how much it costs to operate, and what you need to know before installing it.
View the listLet's talk about what you no longer want to do yourself
Thirty minutes with the engineers who will be doing the work. We’ll take a look at what you have, what concerns you, and what would be included in an operating contract.
Three offices in French-speaking Switzerland: Renens (VD), Sion (VS) and Châtel-Saint-Denis (FR). Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Outside these hours, the on-call contract service is available.