Innovation Awards profile: Auxilion - Virtual remote IT support services

The concept of software as a service is not new nor is that of virtual remote IT support services, but what makes the Auxilion offering unique is that it provides a 24/7 service to clients around the globe with someone always available at the end of a telephone who can deal with a problem and speak in the language of the customer.

Auxilion is a subsidiary of Irish IT outsourcing and consultancy firm IT Alliance and was established in 2011 specifically to develop the new service. The idea was to combine the latest thinking and developments in cloud-computing technology with a virtual workforce to deliver business support operations and services more efficiently than traditional “on premise” approaches.

"Philip Maguire, the founder and chief executive of both IT Alliance and Auxilion, had been thinking about this for a long time but the broadband services and the cloud availability just wasn't there," says Auxilion senior marketing specialist John Paul O'Keeffe.

"We have bridged the gap in the market between pure software-based solutions, such as Service-Now or Salesforce, and traditional on premise support service providers.

“We provide the tools, the technology and the talent as one integrated service offering that can be consumed over the cloud and which is scalable from SMEs right up to large enterprises.”

The service began with the development of the technology platform. “We began in January 2011 by focussing our research effort on the design and development of a virtual IT support service,” O’Keefe recalls. “We believed that there was a sizable and scalable market opportunity to commercialise a new service delivery approach and transform how IT support services are currently delivered.”

This resulted in the development of the Auxilion virtual support engine based on the Microsoft Azure platform that powers the company's virtual service desk and global support services. But that is just one element of the offering.

"There is an emerging concept in the US and Canada of home-sourcing workforces," O'Keefe explains.

“This allows companies to gain access to very highly skilled people who might not otherwise be available to them. That’s what we have done in Auxilion with our virtual workforce. Our employees can be based anywhere in the world and are available to our customers when they need them.

“This offers great benefits. For example, one of our team recently decided that he wanted to move to Cape Town for personal reasons – we were able to facilitate that and he is still working for us there. Our intelligent call answering system means that our customers’ calls are also routed to a team member who is best able to deal with their systems and speaks their language.”

The service has exceeded all expectations since its launch in June 2012. It is in use across the globe by customers including Mainstream Renewable Power, Kingspan, StayCity, the National Sports Campus Development Authority, and PM group. Revenue increased from zero to €2.2 million in 2013 with further growth to €10 million anticipated this year and €20 million in 2015.

“We have 45 people employed at the moment and we plan to add a further 30 over the next 12 months,” says O’Keeffe.

“We are now expanding out our virtual support service portfolio to include a virtual project support service, a virtual customer support service and additional services in the area of cloud transformation.”