Vision Real Estate Group: Ben Friedman

"UPTIME helped us develop a more cost effective operation and really brought our IT systems up to snuff. Without them we'd probably still be wasting money on an unproductive insecure system."

Ben Friedman, Vision Real Estate Group

Ben Friedman is Vice President & COO of Vision Real Estate Group, a vibrant real estate investment firm and management company in Midtown Manhattan. Vision prides itself on staying in constant touch with the latest market trends. Through strategic partnerships with many private equity funds, commercial brokerage firms and development companies, Vision Group offers clients extraordinary real estate investment products and management services. Currently Vision manages a portfolio of over $150 million of real estate assets and has developed strong corporate relationships with Fortune 500 companies, hotel chains and major universities.

Vision Group's mission is to find the greatest value for their clients, which makes them largely reliant on the current information technologies to facilitate both the research and communication that makes them an unparalleled investment force.

Before UPTIME
Ben's group had been through its share of less then competent IT professionals. (Under one consultant's watch, his office was left without email for three weeks, a snafu that seriously compromised Vision's bottom line.) The group's IT system was inefficient and inadequately protected from viruses and security breaches, issues that are paramount in the real estate investment industry.

"Without a rapid response time, our clients start to lose confidence that their wealth is being managed properly. It's simply unacceptable to lose pace in our market," says Ben. "UPTIME let's us transfer our confidence in them to our clients, so they know we are always available and equipped to help them achieve their financial goals."

With UPTIME
Based on a referral from a friend, Ben contacted UPTIME. UPTIME helped the group set up a new more cost effective infrastructure that fully protects the system from viruses and other security breaches. UPTIME first financed the replacement of all of Vision's IT infrastructure, including servers, workstation and network equipment. The existing hardware was outdated and literally slowing the day to day business tasks down. UPTIME migrated all the application servers, databases and users' data over the course of a weekend to make sure they were ready for their next business day. UPTIME then secured the email server, which was totally jeopardized and often blacklisted by anti-spam servers. Once the infrastructure was set, UPTIME then closely trained the users, making sure the switch to their new computer went smoothly before UPTIME left them to their busy schedules. UPTIME hasn't had a single issue since their initial development and continues minor maintenance with Vision today, such as adding more users and setting up new email accounts.

Ultimately, UPTIME helped Vision develop a more cost effective IT infrastructure and keeps their systems fully upgraded and functional-including updating security software and maintenance for an exchange server and 15 remote access points. UPTIME's professionalism, accessibility, good communication skills, high level of customer service, and cost effective pricing are what keeps Ben coming back.

By addressing Vision's immediate concerns-such as security issues and keeping current systems up and running-in a professional and efficient manner, UPTIME has provided Vision with the infrastructure it needs to thrive.

"They respond so quickly and resourcefully to our inquiries," Ben adds, "I just can't imagine using anyone else."