Sharp Group are the premier provider of managed security services for multinational and blue chip clients in Ireland today.
Founded in 1999, the group now employs over 150 people providing monitoring, manned security, electronic security and mobile guarding services.
As an always-on, 24-7 provider of security services, it is vital that Sharp Group has the systems in place to manage an unexpected outage.
“We are a 24-hour monitoring station so if we ever have a failure, we need a full backup,” says Sharp Group MD, Ivan Nolan.
“If we just had a standard phone system sitting in our office and it fails at 3am, then we’re dead in the water.
“That’s why we depend on Magnet Plus (Formerly Magnet Networks) to show for the ball. And they always do and we haven’t had any problems since.”
After conducting a risk analysis of his business, Nolan’s team identified resilience as a key area of focus.
“Magnet Plus brought us forward about ten years and for the cost, were excellent.”
“We took a risk analysis in our office and we looked at the possibility of failures occurring,” Nolan said.
“When we went out looking at new phone systems, we were asking questions about resilience and we could not find anyone who could promise that if we had a failure at 3 o’clock in the morning, our phones were still going to work.
“We then went to a couple of IP companies and went up to their offices, but we just didn’t feel happy that they had the backup and the resilience.
“Magnet Plus brought us forward about ten years and for the cost, were excellent. But they also gave us resilience, which you just can’t buy.”
The security industry is always changing and new threats are emerging all the time.
Nolan says that even though global events like the recent WannaCry cyber attack on the NHS make big headlines, events like these occur regularly, just on a smaller scale.
“Businesses like ours and even small businesses are constantly being attacked, but we have known this for the past 2-3 years. So we started working on it and changed our firewalls over to Magnet Plus and that has given us great security.
“We were paying a company to come in and provide managed firewalls and paying a lot of money on maintenance fees, but it is much more transparent with Magnet.
“Magnet Plus will actually show you and tell you exactly what is protected and how you are protected and then outline the future risks as well.
“So there is an awful lot of two-way information coming from Magnet Plus to Sharp, and it’s all helpful, which is the great thing about it.”
