Paranet Forms Partnership with Granite Properties

Paranet Managed Solutions, a provider of IT infrastructure and consulting solutions, has recently announced that the company has formed a partnership with Granite Properties to help make significant changes to their IT infrastructure.

Granite Properties is one of the larger commercial property owners and managers in the Sunbelt, Dallas area, and is known for their superior customer service face-to-face as well as behind-the-scenes. In the near future, Granite will be looking at other improvements such as upgrading voice connectivity, virtualization of the infrastructure and installation of wireless access points at remote locations. Also, Paranet, in aiming to modify the typical managed services business model, will continue to provide managed IT services and help desk support to Granite.

In a release, the Vice President of Client Services for Paranet (News - Alert) Solutions, Doug Tassan, said that, “Improving Granite’s network reliability and security had a tremendous effect on the company’s productivity and its ability to provide superior customer service. In addition to bringing all security patches and virus protection up to date, we limited the ability of employees to make changes without proper approvals. Not only does this policy change ensure consistency across the network, it also gives Granite peace-of-mind. They don’t have to worry about the network going down or threats gaining access to the system – we’re taking care of all that for them. Granite is committed to doing the right things and the smart things to improve productivity and eventually lower costs. These IT improvements give us the ability to do more for tenants and investors.”

Granite Properties, over the period of ten years, has expanded its portfolio to include dozens of new properties, and each property included its own IT equipment, vendors and licensing agreements. The resulting IT infrastructure of Granite became a muddle, and IT resources were being stretched thin, so the company faced two alternatives—either to add staff or to make significant changes to the infrastructure.

Granite opted for changes to the infrastructure and approached Paranet to perform an assessment of Granite’s IT situation in 2008. Together, the companies formed an aggressive remediation plan that included ensuring the security of their network; standardization of the environment such as upgrades and replacements of hardware, software and licenses, policies and procedures across all offices; management of Granite’s help desk; and the oversight of all day-to-day IT responsibilities.

The Director of Information Technology for Granite Properties, Clint Osteen, added that, “In this industry, tenants, vendors and even our own employees need to actually see us doing our jobs. By having Paranet Solutions manage our IT infrastructure; Granite is able to give the business and business technology the attention it needs. I think a big reason why all of these changes have been so well received is because Paranet really understands the ‘human’ needs of our business, and then adapts their managed services methodology to work for us. We’re very relationship-driven with our clients, employees and vendors. It’s less about the technology and more about people. Paranet understands that it’s critical to reach out to our employees be a face and a person to them rather than just a voice on the phone. That understanding is uncommon in a managed services provider.”