Our vision is simple: To give every business the technology to succeed

Utilize is an IT outsourcing consultancy supporting hundreds of enterprises in London and South East England. Its 130+ employees help organizations to capitalize on innovative technologies and solutions in order to optimize business operations. The company specializes in transformational services across connectivity, cloud, applications, security and management.

According to Andy Portlock, Group Operations Director at Utilize, “Our typical customer has 50 to 150 users with little or no in-house IT support. Our team will typically step in and act as a virtual CTO or IT Manager for our customers, advising them on their technology stack and guiding their digital transformation to be successful.”

Utilize works to tailor the right technology and processes to the individual challenges faced by each customer’s business. Its experts work with clients to drive improvements in everything from application performance, user experience, automation and business intelligence to security and data protection.

“In an increasingly disjointed technology landscape, our clients value the ownership we take on their behalf,” Andy Portlock explained. “Our clients trust us to keep them up and running and connected to the technology that’s so critical for any enterprise today. To retain that trust, we need to be sure that the services we resell are delivered by partners who have the same client-first mindset as we do.”

Connectivity for a cloud-first workplace

At Utilize, Andy Portlock has worked with GTT for many years. In his view, ever-increasing digitalization means that reliable connectivity is now critical to successful business operations. He explained, “GTT’s portfolio of cloud networking services has never been more relevant to our client base, at a time when many businesses are looking to keep a mix of office and home-based workplace environments, following the shift to remote working seen during the pandemic.”

GTT offers channel partners a range of connectivity, SD-WAN, security, cloud, voice and managed services. All are underpinned by its top-ranked Tier 1 internet backbone and hundreds of points-ofpresence across six continents. GTT also helps its channel partners offer their clients greater flexibility and customizable network designs, leveraging a variety of market-leading technologies and its extensive regional access partner relationships.

Reliable services where issues are quickly fixed

For any service provider, downtime can be a real challenge when it comes to retaining customer trust. As a GTT channel partner, Utilize is able to enjoy rapid response times and swift resolutions, which helps to build and retain a satisfied group of end customers.

“Because we sit between our clients and the vendors we contract with on their behalf, it can be frustrating to deal with a poor vendor,” said Andy Portlock. “When they’re in breach of their SLA with us, we consequently sustain a similar breach with our own customers.”

He continued, “We like partnering with GTT because it sets the service availability bar high when compared with other vendors. If I look at the last three months’ performance for assured network services from GTT, the number of service disruptions is low, and any issue has, on average, been resolved within about half the time allowed for in the SLAs. In other words, GTT is consistently fixing any issues for us with half the countdown clock left to spare. I’m delighted that GTT’s great service reliability and support helps us keep our promises to our customers in turn.”

An end-to-end process

Working with GTT offers channel partners the many advantages of having one end-to-end provider: predictable spend, streamlined management, one contract and a single bill. GTT provides a support team during the pre-sales and quoting phase, as well as a dedicated team for post-sales activities and client support. The GTT self-service portal, EtherVision, offers enhanced control, visibility and life cycle management.

James Obank is Head of Managed Services at Utilize and a regular user of EtherVision. He said, “I appreciate that GTT listens to the feedback we’ve provided on what we need from the EtherVision portal, especially where automation makes a huge difference in our ability to serve our customers responsively. GTT’s services are straightforward to quote, sell, deliver and manage.”

A partnership for the long run

The market for IT services is rapidly changing. Utilize stays at the forefront by offering new and innovative ways for its customers to consume its services. GTT is there to support Utilize at every new turn. “With businesses having rapidly changing user bases, we want to be able to offer a more flexible service,” Andy Portlock shared. “This is why we recently launched a monthly subscription service, which we think is a first in our industry.”

Utilize champions a continuous drive for innovation and demands its vendor partners match this approach, requiring a faster pace of adding and changing service requirements.

“GTT is always open to explore new avenues and requirements with us,” said Andy Portlock. “We’re confident GTT has the services and expertise to continue to support us and find new ways of bringing services to market that help us deliver value to our customers.”

Andy Portlock concluded, “At Utilize, we sit on many advisory boards and operational councils. I have no hesitation in recommending GTT as a business partner to others, due to its strong service portfolio; its willingness to always take ownership in resolving any issues; and our great dialogue, which continues to deliver excellent business outcomes for our customers.”

“As we’ve grown our business, GTT has continually viewed us as a valued partner in achieving the goal of providing businesses with ICT services. We pursue different markets, but we work well together because GTT takes our ability to deliver to our customers’ expectations as seriously as we do.”

Utilize