An innovative global business
Kinetico is an award-winning company that produces industry-leading water softeners and treatment systems. Founded in 1970, it revolutionised the market with its non-electric automatic water softeners. Since then, the company has grown into a global business serving more than 100 countries, with offices in America, UK, France, Belgium, Spain, Denmark and Romania as well as an international network of distributors.
Kinetico’s business is not just about providing great-tasting water that doesn’t scale up your appliances. They also produce commercial equipment that protects vital machinery, as well as providing water softeners for the NHS Home Kidney Dialysis programme.
John Kyle is the Technical and Customer Service Manager at Kinetico UK, with a 20 year history at the company. During his time there, he has seen the company evolve and has been a part of its growth, being involved with every department.
The evolution of IT support needs
Business Premium’s device management and protection features are provided by Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Defender. With Intune, you can manage all devices that access your network (including employee-owned devices used for work). Defender protects you against cybersecurity threats and Kinetico’s longevity and international expansion have meant that its IT support requirements have developed over the years. Changes at the company as it grew its global presence, and advances in IT (e.g. in remote access technology) have played a part.
The IT team at Kinetico Corporation’s US offices oversee an increasingly centralised IT infrastructure, integrating software and sharing data where possible.
The UK team need reliable local IT support within their working hours, delivered in a way that maintains the right balance with the American IT team – fitting in where needed, without unnecessary overlap.
Taking a co-managed approach to IT support gives Kinetico a partner who caters to their specific needs by integrating with the US IT department where appropriate and by providing the required support to the UK offices when needed. HBTech provides a bespoke service, tailored to Kinetico’s requirements, giving assistance where it is wanted and co-ordinating with the American IT department to ensure that the UK offices can work without disruption.
For 25 years, members of the HBTech team have been providing support to Kinetico’s UK arm, which now comprises three sites. As working practices have evolved, so has the relationship and the type of assistance given.
John Kyle explains “I’ve been in the business for 20 years this year. We’ve never really had an on-site IT presence. We have an IT team in the States, but the time difference sometimes gets in the way, so having someone local we can call on is good… HBTech take care of the physical side of things, while the US look after most of the back-end admin unless it’s out of hours for them or something goes down… It’s a good position to be in. It’s one less thing to worry about. I can get HBTech to do that and not have to worry about it. Between HBTech and our team in the States, everything is covered 24/7.”
Advancements in remote access mean that some IT support tasks that would previously have required on-site attendance (such as setting up new users and deploying software), are now handled by Kinetico’s US team. HBTech take care of things that need to be managed from the UK (e.g. physical installation of equipment) as well as support that is best delivered locally (e.g. for time zone reasons or because of urgency or efficiency). There is a healthy collaboration between HBTech and Kinetico’s American IT team that can sometimes leave Kinetico’s UK personnel blissfully unaware of the hard work that has gone into keeping everything running smoothly.
John Kyle explains, “the US team trust HBTech and have a long-standing relationship with them. They copy me in as a courtesy, but they deal with HBTech direct for whatever they need… there is a very collaborative approach to our IT support between the US team and HBTech and it works very well, which is why it’s lasted so long despite all the changes. There’s no stepping on toes. There’s great communication and the balls don’t get dropped. I don’t see any evidence of ‘we thought you were going to do that’. So the wheels are very well greased to keep everything working.”
A great working partnership
John Kyle appreciates HBTech’s approach, “HBTech are very proactive, warning or advising the team that something’s coming up, something’s coming out of scope, something’s changed out in the industry. They’re not just waiting for us to come to them with problems. They’re bringing us information before it becomes a problem… As with any IT, when it goes down it’s the end of the world, but HBTech are there when we need them. They are an extension of the team, and everything is just done seamlessly without fault.”
The close co-ordination between HBTech and Kinetico US means that Kinetico UK always has IT support available working in the background, which can prove vital. In 2024, when a faulty update by CrowdStrike caused a global IT outage, HBTech were ready to hit the ground running before offices opened for business in the UK. They got in touch with Kinetico US who (thanks to the time difference) had already been working on a fix. HBTech helped with implementation and Kinetico’s UK offices were ready to start work as if nothing had happened.
Kinetico get exactly what they need
The capabilities of the US team mean that Kinetico UK doesn’t need (and couldn’t justify) a full-time IT department of its own. As John Kyle puts it, “if we were to have a full time IT presence here in the UK, it wouldn’t make sense, we wouldn’t have enough work for them.” But they still need dependable local support. Engaging HBTech for co-managed IT support gives them access to a breadth and depth of experience and expertise that would prove expensive to match in-house.
As well as appreciating HBTech’s “responsiveness, friendliness and professionalism”, John Kyle values the way “they really, truly invest in their own staff, looking after the business and the employees, making sure that they’re working towards excellence. Everything that they do really shows a dedication to the experience that they want their customers to have.”
For John Kyle, it’s simple “They’re there when we need them. It just works. Having HBTech there means we can get on with the day and we can give the service that we want to give our customers because we have the technology working, the technology that supports us and allows us to do that work.”
Would your business benefit from bespoke IT support tailored to your needs? If you want the peace of mind that comes from having an experienced IT team in your corner, Contact us.
