Introduction

Paragon Recruitment is based in Melbourne, and was formed in 1992. Paragon specialises in the recruitment of Project Directors and Managers, Change and Integration Managers, Business Analysts, Service Delivery Managers, Systems Architects and Project Office specialists. Paragon has operated as a niche player in the marketplace focussing on servicing the needs of a core group of clients. Although the business advertises positions through internet-based job boards, the majority of contractors, candidates and new clients come to Paragon as a result of an extensive referral network of satisfied contractors, former candidates and clients. Paragon’s reach, if necessary, can be extended through their membership of CareersMultiList (CML); an Australia-wide network of 120 Australia-owned recruitment companies. Through CML, Paragon is able to tap into an additional pool of quality candidates locally and nationally. Albert Kalaja is Owner and Founder of Paragon Recruitment. In 2008, he engaged Wavenet, an IntraPower company.  

The Challenge

In 2004, Paragon’s Recruitment IT environment was set up with a single server - which all users were logged on to. This prove to be inefficient and difficult to maintain. In addition to this, back up and was a source of concern according to Mr Kalaja. “I was doing backup manually, which was extremely time consuming. Also, the backups were actually stored on the premises, so if there had ever been a fire, we would have lost everything. This was definitely playing on my mind, and I knew that we definitely needed better risk management. “

“However, the fundamental issue was – even though we had hired an external company to manage our file server and the network – it boiled down to the services being provided by one individual. Even though he was very good at what he did, there was no guarantee that he would resolve our problems in the timeframe we needed because there was just one of him. If he was away from the office for example, we would have no one to turn to.

This was manageable for non-critical problems, and we managed to work around this. However, in instances when significant issues arose we were hamstrung by not having access to our system and in particular to our CRM. And because everything we did relied on our CRM, business would virtually come to a halt. “Unreliable IT meant that everyone was affected – dramatically.”  

The Solution

Paragon shortlisted three managed IT providers, but quickly eliminated two of the potential providers as they suffered operational difficulties during the period of evaluation.

“Wavenet offered the best solution of the other two, because they were able to explain their solution to me in more detail – and I perceived that they had a stronger commitment to their solution, and a greater belief in what they were doing” commented Mr Kalaja.

“In the end, it really came down to my desire to focus on my core business. I was sick of managing IT, rather than focusing all my attention on what we as a business are really good at and should be spending our time on. Sourcing all our IT needs from a professional enterprise grade cloud computing environment also meant that we would improve security and reliability, and also have access to helpdesk support. As mentioned before, we had an onsite server maintained by an external party, however not all tech support was able to be provided remotely (nor was it always timely).

I was also very confident that Wavenet could dramatically improve the security of my data and the reliability of our IT environment in general. The other thing that impressed me was that Wavenet was able to host a couple of programs that we rely upon – there’s Tris (which takes care of all of our recruitment operations), MYOB (our accounting software) and Microsoft Office suite of applications.

We decided on the virtual desktop on-demand solution, as it provides us with access to all our applications and data. We access this virtual desktop from PCs in our office, but we can access it from any PC that’s connected to the internet. We liked this solution because it most closely resembled our previous setup, but provided a lot more risk mitigation” explained Mr Kalaja.

Once Wavenet had scope Paragon requirements, a solution design was presented to Paragon prior to implementation.
 “The actual implementation was a surprisingly smooth process. Wavenet managed the preparation over a period of a few weeks, and then the changeover occurred in the space of only 1 day, in fact by morning it was live. That was pretty amazing!"commented Mr Kalaja.

The Result

There have been many benefits to Paragon as a result of engaging IntraPower.

“The product definitely met our expectations; and whilst it’s not something that our customers see directly, the solution has significantly improved our ability to serve them – meaning we can work from different locations and much more smoothly. We have significant fewer interruptions (in fact I can count them on one hand). We also have less unforeseen downtime due to application upgrade or exchange errors."

“Internally, we’re now confident that our data is secure, and we have a comprehensive risk management system in place. “But, I think the most dramatic change has been the fact that I no longer have to manage our IT&T. I wasted so much time on something that was not my core business, and now I am completely free to focus solely on growing my business. That change has been really powerful.”  

About Paragon Recruitment

 Based in Melbourne and formed in 1992, Paragon has operated as a niche player in the marketplace focussing on servicing the needs of a core group of clients. In fact, we think of ourselves as being "Big enough to deliver, yet small enough to care". Although we advertise positions through internet-based job boards, the majority of our contractors and candidates come to us as a result of an extensive referral network of satisfied contractors, former candidates and clients. Our reach is nationally extended through our membership of CareersMultiList (CML), an Australia-wide network of 120 Australian-owned recruitment companies. Through CML, we are able to tap into the largest pool of quality candidates locally and nationally. The multi-listing technology lets us flag vacancies to over 800 recruitment consultants while the client retains just one point of contact within Paragon. The field of specialty of the recruitment companies within CML is Information Technology, Telecommunications, Engineering, Finance & Accounting, Building & Construction, Retail and Sales & Marketing.