2018 Benelux Enterprise Awards

6 EU BUSINESS NEWS / 2018 Benelux Enterprise Awards , Best ICT Support & Management Firm 2018 The Hestia Group offers an extensive range of services that help clients realize their business transformation.We profile the group, focusing on its IT sector, to find out more and explore the secrets behind its success, with the help of Managing Partner Nicolas Geudens. Founded in 2008, Hestia IT is part of the larger holding company, the Cronos group, which is the largest independent Belgium-based IT group. The firm gets its name from Hestia, the daughter of the Greek god Kronos. The goddess Hestia had the responsibility to keep the flame burning on Mount Olympus. Hestia IT on the other hand delivers managed IT services, where they keep the flame burning by keeping their customer infrastructure operational. “We have been rendering services to more than 200 customers and focus on the infrastructure, not on application management,” commented Nicolas Geudens, Managing Partner at Hestia IT. Thanks to Hestia’s managed services, organizations can intensify their digital transformation efforts with Hestia doing the heavy lifting. The company offers their added value through the expertise it has garnered over the ten years that it has been in business. Over the years, IT has become more comfortable and flexible towards the end-user. On the flip-side, IT has become more complicated regarding delivery. The pace at which IT is evolving means that organizations have to deliver their services continually and uninterruptedly while trying to innovate as much as possible. When providing managed IT services, it is vital that the provider takes into account any issues that customers might face. These issues must be solved, while services are rendered with Service Level Agreements in place. As such, to ensure excellence for its clients, Hestia offers 24/7 operation, with its primary customer focus being cross-sector and cross-industry. The firm works with customers in the finance, production, manufacturing and healthcare sectors (active in the 30 largest hospitals in Belgium) and has been acknowledged for their efforts by receiving the MSP 501 award (97th in the world) for the last five years. Dedicated to offering its clients flexibility and support that meets their individual needs, Hestia offers two types of contracts: Flex and Enterprise. With the former, it is the scope of flexibility that appeals most to customers. “Flex contracts are for customers that have their own IT environment and are just looking for assurance if they run out of knowledge, time or people; they want a partner that can help with any problem,” states Geudens. When implementing a Flex contract, customers notify Hestia about their technology stack, after which they can choose the services they require out of Hestia’s service catalogue. With Flex, the area of entry is kept low financially, so that any company can select this type of support model and pay only for the time when Hestia’s consultants work on the issue. Enterprise contracts are almost the opposite. The scope is fixed and pre-defined. Hestia offers a fixed number of services, where it manages the IT environment for a set amount per month. In this case, the customer knows the financial budget, and does not need to look at the operational environment, Hestia keeps it operational at all times. Among the firm’s clients is its work for AZ Maria Middelares, a hospital in Belgium, which approached Hestia for its Flex Contract as their need for intervention was very urgent. Hestia works with the hospital as a partner for all IT tasks, except for network and security. “In case we can’t solve an incident ourselves that has a direct impact on the hospital’s operations, we turn to Hestia’s experts. They come up with the right solution at the right BEN18003