BTG used to look after most of Cosmax’s IT needs but when the company decided to outsource day-to-day IT support instead of maintaining an in-house IT position, a boutique IT partner was hired. However, it quickly became apparent that their services were subpar and unreliable.
BTG had continued to host Cosmax’s servers and that reliable, ongoing relationship led to BTG becoming the company’s one-stop-shop for everything IT when the dissatisfactory IT support partner was replaced in December 2023.
Consumers won’t recognise the name of Cosmax Prestige Brands itself. However, the cosmetics and fragrances it represents in department stores, pharmacies and around New Zealand are international luxury household names such as Guerlain, Shiseido, Hermès, Bvlgari, Coach, Lanvin, Elie Saab, Issey Miyake, Jimmy Choo, Montblanc, and Karl Lagerfeld.
Cosmax needs IT support for its team of 33 people based at its office and warehouse in St Johns, Auckland, and its Montblanc Boutique store in Queen Street.
“The reason we came back to BTG for our day-to-day support is the quality of the engineers and faster response time,” says Cosmax HR and General Affairs Assistant Manager Shizuka Arai.
“When we started looking at changing the IT support company, we remembered the quality of service from BTG was always reliable.
“The knowledge and experience of the IT engineers at BTG is broad. They have a good team of engineers or technicians. So, if one engineer isn’t sure about the issue, then they can always escalate that to a more senior level,” Shizuka says.
BTG had also been recommended by Cosmax’s accountant, Kirit Lal from Walker Wayland, whose opinion was highly valued.
When investigating Cosmax’s needs, BTG undertook a mini audit. The investigation revealed opportunities to improve security, consolidate infrastructure and streamline and simplify the technology – all improving Cosmax’s risk management.
Cyber security improvements and efficiencies were first up.
“Traditionally you might have a server for every function in a business, but now you can streamline your systems,” Account Manager Liz Coutts says.
Once BTG was engaged as Cosmax’s IT support partner, multi-factor authentication was put in place alongside end-point protection, email security, Microsoft back-ups and Microsoft tenancy monitoring.
“BTG has a dedicated security team who could look at security remediation in detail and provide services that Cosmax didn’t have before.
“Layers of protection are now in place to protect Cosmax,” Liz says.
As part of the infrastructure consolidation, a server was decommissioned which provided cost savings.
An investigation of the Wi-Fi at the Cosmax premises in St Johns resolved a longstanding issue and led to a workaround which improved the situation.
“Overall, our team are pretty happy with the BTG support and the response times,” Shizuka says.
She is confident that if there are any issues, their account manager Liz Coutts will step in to resolve things.
“It feels like she is really looking after us and it leads to good outcomes. We have a dedicated account manager we can always talk to, and we have regular meetings with our account manager and a senior IT engineer,” Shizuka says.
About BTG
BTG is a New Zealand-based technology service provider offering private cloud in Auckland and much more! We partner with small to medium Kiwi businesses to deliver smart, secure, and scalable IT solutions. From managed services and cybersecurity to cloud infrastructure, connectivity, and expert consulting – we’ve got your technology needs covered. With a focus on reliability, responsiveness, and real results, BTG helps your business thrive.
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