The Challenge
Located in Arden Hills, Minnesota, Intricon is the trusted contract development and manufacturing organization for medical device and life sciences companies looking for integrated solutions involving microelectronics, electromagnetic sensors, precision molding, assembly, and packaging. Since 1977, Intricon has delivered smaller, smarter medical technology by leveraging responsive collaboration and complete, customized solutions.
Virteva began working with Intricon in late 2023, at a time when the company’s IT environment and leadership team was in transition. The IT department, which included both internal team members and multiple external managed service providers, was striving to enhance service delivery and operational maturity. With the guidance of a newly appointed Information Technology Director, Intricon sought an experienced partner to thoroughly review their Microsoft 365 environment and broader network and infrastructure, and to recommend a thoughtful roadmap toward greater service maturity.
Faced with a rapidly evolving IT landscape, Intricon confronted several significant hurdles:
- Limited adoption of Microsoft 365 capabilities, leaving security gaps and productivity potential untapped.
- A lack of tools and platforms to manage a modern IT operation, including mature ITSM, monitoring, and management toolsets to support a 24x7x365 organization across multiple continents.
- Technical debt on infrastructure, end-user technologies, and security. Intricon needed a clear roadmap, implementation assistance, and plans to support a high-growth company.
Goals & Success Criteria
To address these challenges, the team set the following criteria for success in choosing a new partner:
- Consolidate and streamline IT support under a single, capable provider, increasing both IT service maturity and operational efficiency.
- Provide reliable 24x7x365 support across the globe, with a responsive and white-glove experience for employees.
- Overcome a mountain of technical debt by implementing modern Microsoft 365 cloud, endpoint, and security solutions.
- Leverage ServiceNow and other IT operations tools to manage a high-growth and secure environment globally.
The Solution
Intricon’s engagement with Virteva commenced with a comprehensive IT maturity assessment, which furnished leadership with an in-depth evaluation of the organization’s IT landscape. The assessment’s primary objective was to identify strengths and areas for improvement, leading to actionable recommendations for modernization and optimization. As a result, changes were implemented in both internal IT staffing and managed service provider relationships where necessary.
In the ensuing months, Virteva and Intricon worked closely to onboard Service Desk and End-User Computing services to stabilize support operations, while also introducing Managed Security and Managed Network/Infrastructure services within the same year.
Through Virteva’s support, Intricon has significantly enhanced its utilization of Microsoft 365 tools, including Intune for device management, Purview and Defender for security, and launched an employee self-service portal using Virteva’s shared ServiceNow instance.
Results
- Streamlined IT operations under a single, capable managed service provider.
- Enabled global support for U.S. and Far East teams. Freed internal resources to focus on high-impact, strategic work.
- Improved Microsoft Secure Score from 57% to 70% in less than a year.
- Enhanced security awareness across the organization, reducing phishing-related incidents.
Key Takeaways
By implementing strategic IT enhancements and modernizing service delivery, the organization realized several transformative benefits:
- Consolidating providers not only cuts costs but also restores user trust.
- Leveraging underutilized Microsoft 365 capabilities unlocks significant security and productivity gains.
- Self-service options improve the end-user experience while reducing IT workload.
- Ongoing security training and monitoring lead to measurable risk reduction.