OREANDA-NEWS. CROC has established a Service Desk for British American Tobacco Russia (BAT Russia), one of the leaders in the Russian tobacco industry. The Service Desk provides IT support for enterprise information systems in two principal Moscow offices, two factories, and over 100 of the customer's regional branches throughout Russia. The Service Desk handles at least 5,000 user requests per month.

Regarding the offered service range, the joint project of BAT Russia and CROC is one of the largest IT outsourcing projects in Eastern Europe. The Service Desk provides a single point of contact for IT support requests submitted by corporate users all over Russia.

CROC specialists provide various services, including technical support for more than 3,500 BAT Russia employees in 11 Russian time zones, user workstation management, administration of servers and Lotus Notes applications, as well as the security of the company's information systems. Furthermore, CROC provides a full cycle customer IT equipment management service, including procurement, accounting, storage, and the disposal of obsolete and failed equipment.

"BAT Russia's enterprise services must comply with unified standards and follow unified IT policies established for all branches and departments. That is why we decided to entrust our IT infrastructure to a reliable outsourcing partner with an excellent business reputation. As a result, we significantly optimized management and cut expenses by saving costs on our own IT staff," said Petr Vasiliev, IT Service Manager, BAT Russia.

"We have been cooperating with British American Tobacco Russia for around nine years and our partnership continues to grow. In 2004, we started working together on small equipment support projects; in 2006 we began maintaining 12 service lines for BAT Russia, and now there are 22 lines. Today, approximately 50 CROC specialists ensure the uninterrupted and high quality operation of the customer's IT services, directly participate in IT project planning and implementation, resolve administrative and telecom issues, and perform the company's IT infrastructure development tasks," said Alexander Fineboym, Head of Technical Support Outsourcing, CROC.