Testimonial

Can you tell us about Elit’Info?

Elit’Info is an IT services and maintenance company with a team of 6 people, based in Chambéry in Savoy. We chiefly offer our services in Savoy and High Savoy, as well as in North Isère and Ain, to the north of Switzerland.

The team is structured as follows:

• 2 sales representatives, who split the territory between them; I look after High Savoy and Pierre Milet looks after Savoy.
• The Managing Director, who runs the company and manages his own client portfolio. He also provides training.
• 2 trainers

We are principally endorsed by the main publishers of business management software for payroll accounting, such as Sage, ApiSoft, ApiBat, ApiMeca (Sage PE) and EBP, for which we are an accredited skills centre.

We have three other associated companies, which provide complementary services. They supply equipment to us, take care of the equipment inventory, and are HP Gold Partners. We also have a partnership with an Internet hosting company.

Since October 2003 I have been developing all our services targeting the construction sector via our partnership with the CAPEB, the main trade union for craftspeople. It is a booming market, which generates good business for us.

How big is the base of IT equipment that you manage?

The company as a whole has 1,000 clients, from a single workstation to a network with 25 workstations.

Can you describe your client base?

Our client base is made up of 80% VSBs (with 1-10 employees) and 20% companies with 10 or more employees.
With regard to me personally, my portfolio consists chiefly of clients in construction. But we also have clients across all sectors, from the service and trade sectors right up to points of sale, even some small shops.

Are your clients and prospects generally familiar with the remote backup service?

They have been familiar with the service since we started working with AdBackup, which was at the end of 2008. Demand is currently growing, this market is a bit livelier. Our clients and prospects know about the remote backup service, but they don’t usually come to us for this service.

They turn to us for the whole range of services previously mentioned, namely updates to their software and support for software or hardware issues covered by our maintenance contracts. But we do systematically propose this new service to them.

How do you explain to them in simple terms how this solution works?

Quite simply by stressing the importance and the value of their data. The main objective: backing up the data which is crucial to the smooth running of the business. I describe the advantage of offsite backups to secure data centres which will allow them to restore part or all of their data at any time. I also emphasise the reporting facility offered by AdBackup, which keeps users constantly abreast of the status of the backup.

What key benefits do you outline to them?

These are, in order of importance:

• Security
• Guarantee of confidentiality and costs
• The scope and quality of our range of products, customer service and relationship management, as well as our support.

What are their main reactions and objections, and how do you respond to these?

The methods that our competitors have adopted are not conducive to offsite backup. Abusive practices still abound, such as contracts with financing over 4 years, where the price keeps increasing. Payment in line with the user profile and the volume of the backups is an attractive alternative for our clients.

What is the best time to pitch the remote backup service to your clients?

It is not a matter of timing. All our clients have known about the AdBackup service since we began collaborating with Oodrive. Subsequently, whenever we have a client who is not well prepared, we give them a little wake-up call. We carried out a mailshot before the summer holidays in 2009, similar to the one we did when we started to work with AdBackup between the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2009. Since then, we pitch the service systematically.

How do you estimate the initial capacity that a client needs?

That depends on what type of company it is. If it is a tiny company in the building trade with a small management software package and even some accounting software, it is not too difficult. On the other hand, if a construction company with an integrated design office wants to back up projects, CAD designs, Microsoft Exchange and a database, then in that case we have a meeting with them as soon as they display interest and we can implement a free backup for between a fortnight and a month, which enables us to decide, in collaboration with the client, on the tree structures of the files and to make the client aware of what they want to back up and store offsite.

In the case of small businesses, we know that generally they don’t want to exceed 5 GB. They use AdBackup to be certain that the company’s key data is secure and readily available in the event of a problem. For larger businesses, it is of course necessary to analyse the size of the files in order to make an appropriate proposal.

What type of client is a likely candidate for such a service, in your opinion?

All of them, no particular sector or size of company stands out. We know that in the construction sector, for example, a craftsperson with a single workstation is less exposed to security contingencies. Yet everyone is at risk. For my part, I sell AdBackup to sole craftspeople with their single PC. This is an example of the smallest kind of company that entrepreneurs might have.

As far as I am concerned, any kind of company that is aware of the importance and value of its data is a prospective client. We also make them aware of the value of their data. It is also part of our job to raise their awareness in this regard.

Do you organise or take part in events that bring your clients and prospects together?

We are organising open days with, in my case, institutional bodies, which include the CAPEB of Savoy and High Savoy, some wholesalers from the construction sector and others yet to be decided. Indeed, after the summer holidays we are going to organise information events and we will of course take advantage of these to promote the publishers that we represent and the AdBackup solution!

What do you stand to gain from proposing the remote backup service to your clients?

For us, it means guaranteed security for our clients. It is also a means of winning their loyalty. We benefit commercially and financially, of course.

Why did you choose to enter into an AdBackup partnership?

We compared it with other solutions, since I had some clients that used this service, but we weren’t convinced to start with. We didn’t have sufficient knowledge. I contacted AdBackup’s main competitor, but their proposal wasn’t very clear, moreover AdBackup offered us timely payment terms, and one of our in-house sales staff, Pierre Milet, knew AdBackup.

Therefore we naturally established contact with Oodrive. Their sales and marketing strategy suited us better, and the successful business and technical relationship that we have with Alexandra (Editor’s note:  Alexandra Giraldon, Head of Sales and Marketing at AdBackup) for motivating the sales force finally convinced us.