Wright Plastic Products Values ‘Knowledgeable’ HT Staff to Tackle Co-managed IT
John Christiansen has a lot on his plate.
The IT operations manager for Wright Plastic Products (WPP) is the lone IT employee on staff, which includes not only the company’s headquarters in Sheridan, Michigan, but also its locations in St. Clair, Michigan, and Madisonville, Tennessee.
As a team of one covering three locations, Christiansen will be the first to admit he needs all the help he can get from an IT perspective.
“I do everything that I possibly can,” he said. “If I don’t know how to do it, I want to learn it.”
An that designs custom plastic products for the automotive, marine, defense and consumer market industries, WPP has had co-managed IT services with Hungerford Technologies since 2018.
Christiansen handles the company’s day-to-day IT tasks, such as reactive fixes, troubleshooting, and resetting passwords, while he noted HT is the “expert” on networking, group policies, active directory, new things coming out from Microsoft and managing the company’s Microsoft accounts.
“I’m so busy with day to day, I don’t have a lot of time to go out there and research new innovations from Microsoft, new threats that are out there,” he said. “We kinda need the higher level, where your focus is IT and internet security and today’s market.
“That’s a high-value service right there.”
“I look to Hungerford for recommendations and better ideas,” he said. “Hungerford oversees it, directs us, gives us advice and takes over where I can’t do something myself.”
Christiansen doesn’t have a typical IT background. Beginning at WPP in 1994 as a press operator, he held sales and HR positions with the company before moving to IT in 2015.
Working at WPP for nearly 30 years, he has deep familiarity with the company, something an MSP can’t match. But MSPs have broad expertise across many industries, something a single organization doesn’t possess. Combining the two offsets the weaknesses of each strategy, improving the overall IT support for the organization.
“I look to Hungerford for recommendations and better ideas,” he said. “Hungerford oversees it, directs us, gives us advice and takes over where I can’t do something myself.”
Christiansen said he appreciates HT’s “knowledgeable” approach to IT services. And because his IT training has been solely hands-on experience with WPP, he said he values the safety net that HT provides with a team of experts that specialize in every aspect of IT, covering any knowledge gaps that he has.
“Hungerford is there to keep me from opening up security holes in our network and doing things that I shouldn’t do,” Christiansen said.
Hungerford Values Longstanding Relationships
HT is the third managed service provider WPP has utilized. The company outgrew its first MSP, and the second MSP had too much turnover for Christiansen’s liking, making it hard to develop relationships and trust.
Developing those relationships and trust is one of the biggest things that Christiansen said sets HT apart from other MSPs, as well as employee availability.
“You guys gave me (engineer) Matt Sansoterra from Day 1, and he’s just the best person to work with. He takes care of my needs, he makes me feel comfortable when I’m worried about things; he’s a good person to work with. That’s the best thing any IT service can offer. He seems to be always available.”
WPP’s contract with HT includes strategic planning services, such as lifecycle planning, budgeting and roadmapping. Christiansen mentioned how valuable these services have been, as it’s easy to get bogged down taking care of the day-to-day tasks without looking at the bigger picture.
“Every once in a while, you have to stop, and you have to look at how things are going, and you have to think about the future,” he said. “And that forces us to do it. (Director of Operations) Greg Webb has a wonderful personality, so I don’t mind sitting in those at all.”
Overall, Christiansen said HT’s services have been extremely valuable and have taken a lot of work off his plate, allowing him to focus on company-specific tasks.
“We’ve been with (HT) for so long, I just swear they came in and fixed everything,” he said. “Our network was so cobbled. We had just recently bought the third location and trying to get them on our network.
“Their confidence and their knowledge, I just don’t think I could do without them.”
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