Arizona-Based Champion College Services Moves from In-House IT to Outsourced IT

Champion College Services, Inc. (Champion) is an Arizona-based company with just over 30 employees. Since 1989, they have lowered school default rates through their programs for student loan default prevention, assisting over three million students with making well-informed repayment choices.

The Challenge

Champion historically employed a full-time IT resource, assuming the responsibility to manage their technology. When their Network Administrator of over 7 years resigned, they decided to explore outsourcing. “Time was of the essence, as we had just a couple weeks to onboard a new IT partner,” said Cheryl Kesson, General Manager. “We needed to make a decision very quickly. We couldn’t afford downtime with IT as our business depends on our employees’ ability to be productive, and IT is important to this.”

The Solution

Champion explored both local and national IT managed service providers in their decision-making process. They required a partner who could assume responsibility for leading and servicing their technology strategy. Kesson happened to receive an email from MyTek inviting her to have coffee with the company’s CEO Tim Tiller. She said that email really stood out and the timing was perfect. After an initial meeting with Tiller, the MyTek team visited Champion’s offices to learn more about their needs. MyTek also invited Champion to visit their office in Scottsdale for a tour.

“What really impressed me was how interested they were in learning about our business and really wanting to understand how to best meet our needs,” said Kesson. She added that the other IT vendors they met were focused on selling their solutions instead of first listening and learning about Champion’s business.

The Benefit

Champion is now a happy client of MyTek and shared these benefits about the partnership:

• A reasonable price point with pricing per user versus a flat rate regardless of users.
• Having a partner that cares about their unique IT needs and does not try to sell
them on a one-size fits all solution.
• A personal touch with direct communication with MyTek’s CEO when needed.
• Meeting Champion’s IT needs today, but assuring them that Mytek can adapt the
IT solution as needed if they decide to move from physical servers to cloud-based
in the future.
• A seamless onboarding process that went smoothly and efficiently.
• Incredible response times, which was something they were concerned about with
outsourcing since they’d been accustomed to having an in-house resource.
• The comfort of working with a local vendor who could easily be on-site when needed.
• Supporting another Arizona business.
• Recognizing a cost-savings through outsourcing without any sacrifice in customer
service or quality.
• Confident that MyTek truly cares about them as a business and has a stake in
their success.
• Peace of mind that they have a strong and secure IT infrastructure supporting
their business growth goals.

Cheryl Kesson

General Manager

About
MyTek:

Cheryl Kesson serves as Champion College Services’ General Manager. She has been with the company for 13 years and oversees all departments and major programs and initiatives. Kesson led the five-person internal team that was responsible for interviewing, vetting and selecting a new managed IT services partner.