Having Vnetrix as a trusted advisor has allowed us to invest our energy and resources back into our core business without worrying about managing IT.
Louise Gulliver,
Managing Director
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Louise Gulliver joined TACK International UK in 2001 and has held positions of Marketing Director, Operations Director, and most recently Managing Director. Louise is Chartered Marketer who is married with two children. She confesses to an unhealthy obsession with low-brow television balanced with a more healthy interest in current affairs.
TACK International designs and delivers business skills training for companies in the UK and 54 other locations around the world. Predominantly we focus on the skills areas that are vital for business success, ranging from sales and sales leadership, marketing, general management and leadership, personal development and finance.
The majority of our training is delivered in an instructor-led, face-to-face format as the nature of our curricula necessitates real-time interaction with our delegates. However, we are being driven by our customers to have more technology-enabled solutions, so adopting a blended approach has become increasingly important. Our training can consist of in-person workshops supplemented by virtual, self-paced training that takes place before, during and/or after the workshop sessions.
Today’s reality is that technology has become more of an enabler to what we do and a critical part of the solutions that we offer. Therefore, it’s extremely important that we have the right tools and processes in place.
That said, technology is something that you hear nothing about as long as everything is going well; the minute something isn’t going well, you become very aware of technology! Fortunately for us, it’s been all very quiet most of the time. My ongoing goal is to make sure our technology continues to work seamlessly for us. This has great, positive impact on our internal operations as well as how we deliver our services to our customers.
We have been working together with Vnetrix since 2006. In the early days, just before we started engaging with Vnetrix, technology/IT almost sat aside from the core of the business. This was partly because of the way we managed our IT and partly because of our corporate culture at the time. We had an internal IT function in the beginning, but considering the nature and scope of TACK’s business, I knew that we could really drive improvement by adopting a different model that would provide greater agility and better user experience.
At the time, it wasn’t quite commonplace yet to outsource IT, so it was a big leap of faith for the business to look to an external IT provider. There were many stakeholders to convince and lots of due diligence to go through as we addressed serious questions about the impact of outsourcing a major function like IT.
In the end, we had to acknowledge the fact that for our internal IT to maintain the pace that IT needed to drive us forward as a business was too much of a burden from a cost and resource perspective. Therefore we looked to an external provider who would deliver a better, more agile service at an even better cost base, without sacrificing quality – and that’s what led us to Vnetrix.
Having Vnetrix as a trusted advisor has allowed us to invest our energy and resources back into our core business without worrying about managing IT. Vnetrix being onboard as an extension of the TACK business gives us a team of IT experts who have the insight and knowledge to provide sound advice, as well as proactively come up with solutions that help enhance our own solutions. Vnetrix helps technology stay in tune with our overall business strategy – being smart about how we work with the technology tools and processes today and going forward.
The Vnetrix team’s level of service, including responsiveness and interest demonstrated to our users, has been very valuable. TACK has a range of IT users, from people not at all comfortable or confident with IT to others who are quite advanced and beyond the fundamentals. All of their needs and their issues need to be taken seriously as we collectively continue to optimise their experience of IT.
The strong level of service we have been receiving from Vnetrix to date will be the continued expectation, and the guidance and partnership they provide differentiate Vnetrix from other external partners and providers. I would have no hesitation in recommending Vnetrix to my network, which is the best indicator of our level of satisfaction.
Growth is very much on the agenda for TACK. The demands of our customers continue to grow, which is wonderful but challenging. The world of learning is definitely transforming, and it’s likely that the training methods we use today will not stay the same for much longer. Technology and continued innovation will be key in how we further develop our business.
We are expanding our footprint globally, and further international reach is an important part of our strategy. Being a provider who has the capability to deliver highest quality training solutions globally, while maintaining outstanding levels of service and flexibility, will be the critical success factor that takes TACK International to the next level of growth and innovation.