How We Work: From Discovery to Ongoing Partnership
From discovery to ongoing management — OAS's six-phase engagement model ensures right-sized IT solutions, transparent SLAs, and long-term strategic partnership.
Every organisation's IT environment is different. That is why OAS never recommends solutions without understanding your business first. Our structured, six-phase engagement model ensures that every deployment is scoped against your actual environment, aligned with your objectives, and delivered with minimal disruption — then managed proactively for the long term.
A Discovery-Led Approach
Too many IT providers pitch products before understanding the problem. OAS takes the opposite approach. Every engagement begins with a thorough discovery and assessment process that maps your current infrastructure, identifies gaps, and builds a prioritised roadmap.
This model applies across all OAS solution areas — Three Pillar Managed Security, Citrix virtual workspace deployments, Microsoft Azure migrations, and managed IT services.
Six Phases, One Continuous Relationship
Phase 1 — Discovery
We start by understanding your current IT environment, business goals, and pain points. This includes a comprehensive audit of existing infrastructure, a review of your security posture, an assessment of licensing and vendor agreements, and stakeholder interviews to understand compliance requirements and growth plans.
Deliverable: Discovery Report with environment baseline and findings summary.
Phase 2 — Assessment
With the discovery data in hand, we identify gaps, risks, and opportunities. Our team performs a gap analysis against best practice and compliance requirements — POPIA, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or FSCA depending on your industry. We produce a prioritised risk register and a total cost of ownership analysis comparing your current costs against proposed solutions.
Deliverable: Assessment Report with prioritised recommendations and risk register.
Phase 3 — Proposal
We present a clear, scoped solution with transparent pricing, a realistic timeline, and expected outcomes. Pricing follows the model that fits your organisation — per-endpoint subscription for managed security, project-based for migrations, or a hybrid approach. Every proposal includes defined service level commitments and escalation paths.
Deliverable: Commercial Proposal with scope, pricing, timeline, and SLA terms.
Phase 4 — Deployment
Implementation follows a phased rollout — pilot group first, then broader deployment. OAS engineers handle technology deployment, configuration, and hardening aligned to your security baselines. Every deployment goes through functionality, performance, and security validation before go-live.
Deliverable: Deployment Completion Report with configuration documentation.
Phase 5 — Onboarding
Your team receives hands-on training for new tools and workflows. IT administrators get day-to-day operational training and first-line troubleshooting guidance. We hand over runbooks, escalation procedures, and configure monitoring dashboards and alerting thresholds for the transition to managed services.
Deliverable: Onboarding Pack with training materials, documentation, and support contacts.
Phase 6 — Ongoing Management
This is where the real value compounds. OAS delivers continuous, proactive IT management:
- 24/7 Monitoring — N-able RMM provides continuous endpoint and infrastructure monitoring with automated alerting - Incident Response — SentinelOne autonomous detection and containment, backed by OAS analyst investigation - Patch Management — Automated OS and third-party application patching on approved schedules - Backup Monitoring — Daily verification of Cove backup jobs with proactive remediation of failures - Monthly Reporting — Security posture, backup status, patch compliance, and incident summaries - Quarterly Business Reviews — Strategic review of your IT environment, upcoming risks, technology roadmap, and budget planning
Deliverable: Monthly Reports, Quarterly Business Review presentations, vCIO recommendations.
Working With Your In-House IT Team
OAS is not a replacement for your internal IT staff — we are an extension of them. Our co-managed IT model gives your team access to specialist expertise in security, Citrix, and cloud infrastructure while they retain control of day-to-day operations. Escalation paths are clearly defined so there is never ambiguity about who handles what.
SLA Transparency
OAS operates a priority-based SLA framework with defined response and resolution targets:
| Priority | Scenario | Response | Resolution Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 — Critical | Complete outage or security breach | 15 minutes | 4 hours |
| P2 — High | Major service degradation, multiple users affected | 30 minutes | 8 hours |
| P3 — Medium | Single user or non-critical system affected | 2 hours | 24 hours |
| P4 — Low | Request or minor issue with workaround available | 4 hours | 48 hours |
SLA performance is reported monthly with trend analysis, and terms are reviewed annually at contract renewal.
Virtual CIO Advisory
For mid-market organisations without a dedicated CIO, OAS provides virtual CIO (vCIO) services — strategic IT guidance aligned to your business objectives. Your vCIO participates in Quarterly Business Reviews, advises on technology roadmap decisions, and helps translate IT investment into measurable business outcomes.
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Internal Links
- Our Story — 40+ years of enterprise IT partnership - Three Pillar Managed Security — The Protect, Detect, Recover framework deployed during Phase 4 - Managed IT Services — Ongoing monitoring and management delivered in Phase 6 - Contact Sales — Start with a free discovery conversation