2020.

Not a great year, by any stretch of the imagination.

As soon as the pandemic began its cruel spread across the globe, my dedicated management team at SysAid all sat together, on Zoom of course, and planned.

What are we going to do to keep our employees safe, and our customers on track towards success despite the unique challenges the IT community was suddenly facing?

We embarked on a program composed of a number of initiatives. Which led to us winning the 2020 Tech Cares Award. Nice surprise! Obviously this was not the purpose of any initiative (the award did not even exist back then).

I am flattered and grateful that TrustRadius, one of the most trusted customer review platforms for business tech, honored SysAid with this award that recognizes companies for going the extra mile during COVID-19.

It’s SysAid’s honor to help our customers – we’re one global village and this is the time to show responsibility and care for one another.

Safety and business continuity for customers and employees alike

In mid-March 2020, when COVID-19 was spreading like wildfire all over the world, SysAid sent all its employees (in Canada, Israel, and Romania) home to work remotely.  The same can be said for most (if not all) of our customers around the globe.  Safety first, of course!

But what about business continuity?

I felt personally responsible for our customers, because SysAid is an IT service management (ITSM) solution (service desk, asset management, automation, etc), which became even more mission-critical with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. We knew that our customers were suffering and we knew there were things we could do to help.

Straight away, I  sent a letter out to all SysAid customers. This letter was reprinted in our blog here.

As reflected in my letter, our DevOps team went into overdrive in order to help many of our On-Premises customers quickly move to Cloud, without any hassle. So they can more easily maintain business continuity, remotely.

In addition (also mentioned in the letter), SysAid donated 15,000 TeamViewer remote control licenses to help IT departments support their remote workforce

We also quickly got started with a COVID-19 Resources Center. This was created to provide useful, practical tips and guidance on topics ranging from remote support to continuity planning to digitizing workflows (and more). Not to mention some fun stuff too, because we all needed to smile in the chaos too!

Then, at the end of May/early-June 2020, as COVID-19 seemed to be somewhat under control and health departments were starting to allow people to leave their homes, SysAid launched its free Worksafe App, in order to simplify daily self-reporting of location and health status, while automatically alerting management to potential coronavirus exposure at work.

Initially, we used it only internally at the company, but then made it public as we understood how much this can help other organizations.

Also worth mentioning is the FREE SysAid Accelerator Program that we organized and ran over a 6-week period in May-June 2020 – to provide a boost in the service management industry, with free tools, tips, and training.

During these 6 weeks, we invited industry thought leaders to present the most essential topics for today’s new normal: advanced automation, self-service, remote control, enterprise service management, and digital workflows.

All of these topics are crucial today, more than ever. And SysAid is committed to further increase development in all these areas, which include current offerings such as: a service orchestration tool, a digitized workflow designer, self-service portal (with service catalog), top-of-the-line remote control integrations, and Service Center – a free offering to help HR, finance, and other non-IT departments move away from  their shared mailbox, to speed up service and boost employee productivity.

What customers said

On July 21, 2020, one online reviewer said about SysAid: “Exactly what we needed in a time of crisis. Due to the coronavirus pandemic we were suddenly thrust into working from home. Our ticketing system didn’t allow us to access it from the outside. SysAid allowed us to communicate and keep our workflow going as if we were in the office still.”

North York General Hospital, ranked the #2 hospital in Canada, is another great customer example. They’re heroically serving in the front line of the coronavirus battle. Their Information Services department is using the SysAid platform to increase efficiency. One of the most important results of using SysAid has been that they’ve freed up 6,600 hours for hospital staff, which they can now devote to patient care. That’s a testament that I’m very proud of!

Fun & smiles too

And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention SysAid’s contribution to the IT community on July 31st, International SysAdmin Appreciation Day, with the first-ever music video, called “Working From Home” – an original song using lyrics crowdsourced from IT people all over the world, about a topic that is now close to e-v-e-r-y one of us.

Watch it here:

Congratulations to all the winners

I’m proud to be a part of the B2B technology industry that stepped up to the plate. Congratulations to all our fellow 2020 Tech Cares winners.

We celebrate together with the IT community who has worked tirelessly to keep hospitals, schools, governments, grocery stores, and supply chains running. They are the unsung heroes of today.