CIO's Shopping Guide

Company: SlashSupport India

Location: Chennai

Profile: SlashSupport is a dedicated technology support organization
that, in over six years of existence, has been working to emerge as the de facto
'Total Solutions Provider' in the niche area of outsourced technology and
customer support. For enterprise-class clients and their technically savvy
customers, SlashSupport offers higher-end technology support for complex
products and systems. For consumer-class clients, they offer total support
solutions addressing the entire customer lifecycle. This covers pre and post
sale technology support, customer service and customer management services. As
of now SlashSupport is a 2,000 member strong company.

Current IT infrastructure in the company: The firm at present has a
voice call center infrastructure on Avaya along with a call logger from Nice.
The data network is on Cisco switches while WAN infrastructure on Alcatel Mux.
Desktops are from IBM, HP, Dell and Acer. Networking components are from
different vendors.

Value of existing IT infrastructure: The IT hardware is pegged at Rs
15 crore. Out of this, voice infrastructure from Avaya and related components is
worth Rs 8 crore; data switches and related equipment from Cisco is worth Rs 1.5
crore; PCs and servers from IBM, HP, Dell, Acer are worth Rs 5 crore. Other
equipment is worth Rs 50 lakh.

Proposed IT infrastructure for 2005-06: We have proposed an IT
infrastructure worth Rs 2.5 crore for FY 05-06 of which about Rs 1 crore has
been allocated for voice infrastructure and Rs 50 lakh would go in for data
switches. About Rs 60 lakh has been outlayed for PCs and servers, while security
equipments would get about Rs 40 lakh.

Current systems supplier: Our current suppliers include IBM, HP, Cisco
and Avaya and we have maintained our loyalty towards them.

Qualities we look for in a supplier: Firstly, we look for good sales
and support. Other things that we expect our suppliers to provide us with are
competitive rates, innovative solutions, flexible payment terms, good
technologies and above all-the ability to understand our needs.