Why should I hire external consultants?
While a full-time employee is likely the best option for many day-to-day tasks, there are compelling reasons to engage an external consultant in certain circumstances.
- It’s hard to find high-level Metaswitch and VoIP experts on the open employment market.
- There’s no point paying top dollar for an employee with advanced technical skills or strategic wisdom, when you don’t need these skills every day. You can save money and get access to specialist expertise by using an external consultant to help with your most important issues.
Andrew’s technical knowledge of complex soft-switching networks, operations insights and troubleshooting skills have helped us drastically improve our network, operations, and customer satisfaction. Every problem, migration or new product/project we bring to him he solves quickly, thoroughly and with a deep understanding of the technical and business impacts. Andrew has helped us solve some of the most difficult and complex problems we have in our business.
Andrew also understands the people aspect of our business and is very skilled in coming along side our existing staff and raising their skill level. His documentation skills are better than any we have ever seen with detail and thoroughness that is rare to find.
Our organization is dramatically different and far better than before our engagement with Andrew, We recommend him highly to anyone looking to raise the standards in their technical and operations areas.
Ray Napoletano
Director of Sales & Service – ReInvent Telecom
We are preparing for a big migration project. Can you help?
Absolutely – in fact this may be the ideal role for us. Creating a strategy for a migration is our kind of fun!
One of Andrew’s favorite roles at Metaswitch was as the founding manager of the Metaswitch Commissioning Team, which handled all new customer turn-ups and PSTN migrations (moving service from the legacy TDM switch to the Metaswitch platform). In that role Andrew wrote many of Metaswitch’s best practice documents for switch migrations and was involved (either directly or as a supervisor) in dozens if not hundreds of migration projects over the years.
So if you have an upcoming migration project, whether that’s on your switches or with your SBCs, then contact us and we can discuss how we can help.
We have been very pleased with the services Andrew provided. He brings a wealth of knowledge to the table: not only a comprehensive high-level understanding of how the Telco industry works, but also a much more granular level with hands-on assistance with configuration and real-world strategic planning and design. He is very down to earth and easy to work with. I would strongly recommend Andrew’s services!
Joel Dunifon
Chief Information Officer – Benton Ridge Telephone Company and Subsidiaries
This all sounds good, but I’m worried about making a big investment when I haven’t worked with you guys before.
That’s a very reasonable concern – there are plenty of businesses with fancy websites and big claims, but they don’t all live up to their billing. If you’re unsure about working with us then I have a couple of suggestions for you.
- Read some of the articles in our archive – these will give you an idea of some of the areas of our expertise, and maybe even some of our odd personality quirks.
- Read the testimonials on this page. These are direct quotes from real people – managers and executives at regional service providers just like you – describing their experience working with us.
- Consider our history:
- Andrew worked at Metaswitch for 14 years, starting out as an entry level software developer, before moving into the support organization as a CSE and being promoted several times to become VP Operations at the age of 32. When Andrew chose to leave to start this consulting company, six of his first eight clients engaged him as a result of a recommendation from their Metaswitch account manager.
- Stephen was founder and CTO of a CLEC – so has experience building and running a voice network himself – before spending 11 years at Metaswitch as a customer support engineer and support manager, working with hundreds of service providers over the years.
If you still have some reservations, and want to start small, then consider trying our system audit service, which gives you a good way to work with us on a small project with limited risk.
Andrew understands my perspective as head of the technical organization, and can also easily relate to the technicians who work on the system. So he and I can discuss business problems, and then switch gears to focus on a specific technical detail.
David Allen
Senior Director of Telecom Operations, OTELCO
I just lost my lead switch tech – can you provide cover?
Sometimes a key employee leaves unexpectedly, and you find yourself short in resources and critical expertise for your Metaswitch equipment. Several of our clients first contacted us for exactly this reason.
If you find yourself in this situation, hiring an external consultant for a month or two can give you access to the expertise you need to keep your switch running smoothly.
It’s typically not economical for our engineers to spend extended periods of time on-site (a few days here and there is helpful, but nothing longer than that), but we’ve had good success acting as an escalation point and mentor to a more junior employee who is physically present and can quickly learn how to handle basic issues.
If you find yourself short-handed please contact us and we can discuss your situation and how we can help.
We greatly appreciate the quick responses, high quality information and availability for hands-on fixes and improvements. Without realizing it, I think we’ve come to think of Award Consulting as something of an extension to our own team.
Stacy Johnson
Systems Integration Engineer, BEK Communications
We have unique needs. Do you do custom engagements?
Yes. We offer a variety of packaged services, but can also provide customized technical and strategic advice to service providers depending on their specific needs. Take a look at our services for more information or contact us directly.