Some information about Sincro:
- Creation date: 2014
- Location: Paris, France
- Business sector: management software for intellectual service providers
- Number of employees: 60
We are pleased to introduce Philippe Bechtel, CTO at Sincrowho shares his experience with our solution!
First of all, the context. Since January 2023, Rzilient has been working with Sincro, the benchmark management software for the intellectual service industry in France.
In concrete terms, Sincro helps its customers - major accounts and intellectual service companies (intermediaries, service companies and ESNs) - to structure and manage their subcontracting.
Focus on the day-to-day challenges facing Philippe, a resolutely multi-faceted CTO!
Being a CTO in an SME: a multifaceted job
The Sincro context illustrates a recurring situation
As Philippe reminds us during our exchange: "At SincroI head up the development team and design our architecture. When we had a performance problem that directly impacted our employees, I was also the main point of contact to lend a hand on the IT side".
This means that Philippe has to manage his time efficiently. ⏲️
Sincro has around 60 employees, working in various locations, including Paris and Lyon, as well as from home, representing a total of 55 workstations, including 10 for in-house subcontractors.
One of Philippe's missions is to manage his company's IT fleet, but it's a bit "by default".
This is a constant with our customers. For companies with between 20 and 50 employees, it's rare to have someone dedicated to IT asset management.
Time-consuming and tedious activities
Philippe is fairly straightforward in his assessment of the tasks involved in managing the IT estate, which he had to carry out manually for several years.
He has invested a great deal of time in :
- buy computers direct (from Dell, HP and other manufacturers, as required);
- suffer the frequent errors associated with these purchases, for example with regard to warranty periods and conditions, as well as installed software and operating systems (for example, receiving a PC with a Windows Home operating system!).
Another example of the difficulties encountered? Waiting 5 months, in the middle of the Covid-19 crisis, to obtain a PC that was urgently needed, but delivered with an unsuitable configuration! 😯 Philippe affirms, "This type of delay shows the limits of artisanal management of the IT park".
Another aspect is user support, which can be time-consuming and distract the CTO from his core business.
In a team made up entirely of IT engineers, the problem doesn't arise.
But when a good half of the team takes on administrative roles that don't require advanced IT skills, the worries begin.
Philippe regularly received unusual requests. One example among many? Taking control via Teams to reconnect the sound during a video conference with a customer. The user had accidentally turned it off, and didn't know how to turn it back on!
The trigger: a period of strong growth
Sincro's CTO had already heard of our solution, Rzilient, but hadn't taken the time to take the plunge.
It was a growth spurt, including numerous onboardings to be carried out, that prompted him to look for ways to save time. 📈
Another factor came into play: the opening of an office in Lyon, with a team of 6 people working remotely. To guarantee high-performance IT support for this remote team, it was imperative to find a dedicated solution.
In short, Philippe simply no longer had the resources to manage the company's growing IT estate, and opted for Rzilient's all-in-one iT management platform.
The result with Rzilient: considerable time and comfort savings
There's the before Rzilient...
We then ask Philippe about the time he spent buying computers before adopting our solution.
"With only one bank card available for the whole company, buying a PC could take me up to 3 hours! I then had to take the time to receive it and configure it. In other words, it was a considerable waste of time".
An anecdote illustrates the extent of this source of lost productivity, which we regularly encounter among our prospects. One day, Philippe had to go to the UPS logistics center in Gennevilliers, and wait on the loading docks, to receive a computer urgently awaited by one of Sincro's managers! Not a task you'd expect to find in a CTO's job description. 🚚
Philippe has also considered delegating the management of IT support requests to his IT developers, but the difficulty is that this job is not always associated with sufficient "customer service" skills.
The same problem applies to hardware management, where developers are often not specialists.
The squaring of the IT circle, as experienced by many SME CTOs, is summed up in Philippe's words: "We know it's not profitable for the CTO to carry out all these tasks, but it's quicker to do it yourself, and in any case, no one else in-house is competent to do it...".
...and then there's Rzilient's post-adoption period!
Philippe's objective was clear: to delegate all these tasks to Rzilient, whose business it is, and who can even offer on-site interventions if required.
Philippe used to spend more than 8 hours a month managing his computer park. With Rzilient, 2 hours is enough.
In terms of financial savings, the switch to reconditioned equipment (without the fear of it breaking down) has brought a real saving of around 30% on IT purchases. At the same time, Sincro has embarked on a Green IT initiative. 🌍
The gain in terms of comfort for Philippe and his colleagues is also significant. Another anecdote illustrates this well: "A colleague had his computer stolen on a Thursday evening, and the next day, on Friday afternoon, he already had a reconditioned and configured PC, for a lower price and with the same performance. A big time-saver!
Using the Rzilient platform, Philippe has copied himself on user tickets, and can simply observe requests, reacting only when really necessary.
A final case in point is onboarding management. When a new employee recently arrived, Philippe was able tosupply a PC in 5 minutes (whereas it used to take him 4 to 5 hours)!
An adaptation phase is necessary
Philippe also tells us that during the initial deployment phase of Rzilient, he decided to refer user requests to the platform.
The result? His involvement quickly became residual, after an unavoidable adaptation phase. Employees quickly began to call on the Rzilient team instead of Philippe!
Ready to give Rzilient a try?
