An Interview with Rodney Shook, Vistem Solutions Inc. President: ‘We Provide Specialized IT Services that Help you Overcome Business Challenges through High-Quality and Cost-Effective Technology’

“Through collaborative development efforts with our global customer base, we continually improve our systems to meet the industry’s evolving needs.”

To remain competitive, small businesses must maximize current technologies. They must do this cost-effectively and with little direct Information Technology (IT) experience. Maintaining a dedicated, full-time IT department, as do their larger counterparts, is simply too expensive, time-consuming and inefficient for small businesses.

The answer to this predicament is solved by using a true Professional Technology Services Provider. These providers offer on-demand talent, depth of experience, deep resources and huge economies of scale that allow small businesses or any business for that matter to receive both peace of mind and affordable professional-class IT service.

In light of the above-mentioned scenario, we are thrilled to present Vistem Solutions Inc. (VSI).

Vistem Solutions provides the specialized Network Services that can help you achieve your business goals. It offers the IT consulting that can drive your business to become more profitable, productive, and stress-free.

Vistem was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.

Rodney Shook, Vistem Solutions Inc. President, spoke to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Tell us about Vistem Solutions Inc.

Vistem Solutions is a provider of comprehensive IT outsourcing services and solutions. We are employee owned and specialize in utilizing premiere engineers and technicians to deliver cost-effective, high quality IT solutions with efficient turnaround times.

We provide real-time project updates to our clients – a proven method for assuring that deliverables are on target and on time. This is accomplished in part by providing dedicated services of Project Managers with strong technical competencies, excellent communication skills and the mandate to act as gatekeepers for clients – coordinating project activities with off-site teams and NOC Resources. We take responsibility for the overall control of each assignment assuring it is on time and on budget.

Our mission is to provide customer-focused solutions by working with our customers as a trusted partner, help leverage technology to meet their strategic business objectives and achieve lasting success. And to demonstrate leadership as a solution provider by providing information management services which measurably enhance our customers’ performance and profitability.

Brief us about the services and solutions VSI offer.

IT Outsourcing: Through its outsourcing support and services, VSI can provide expert management of some or all of your company’s information systems--freeing you to focus on your core business while ensuring that your technology investments are meeting the intended strategic objectives.

Our flexible outsourcing options range from processing and maintenance of a single application or line of business to total information systems support and data center management. Processing may be performed at your site or at one of our state-of-the-art processing centers located around the world.

Application Development (Complete technology solutions): VSI offers one of the most comprehensive portfolios of specialized application software for the Maritime industry. Representing years of industry knowledge and experience, our systems are developed to meet the unique needs of the maritime union workers, shipping companies and administrative organizations.

Our software solutions enable the maritime industry to collect and utilize critical business information, conduct transactions, streamline business processes, leverage a variety of distribution channels, and develop and nurture client relationships. They’re designed to help you improve your business, operate more cost-effectively and respond quickly to market change.

Because of the open, modular architectures, our waterfront automation solutions can be implemented as separate functional components depending on your timescales and business requirements. These solutions can be easily integrated with each other and with existing third-party or in-house systems and customized to meet unique operational and regional needs.

Recognized as a leader in research and development for waterfront automation, we continually update our systems to take advantage of advanced, proven technologies. We also work with other best-of-breed suppliers to provide comprehensive solutions to our customers.

And, through collaborative development efforts with our global customer base, we continually improve our systems to meet the industry’s evolving needs.

Products:

Allocation: Allocations^© is a web-based Business-to-Business solution which allows member companies to securely place labor orders via the Internet 7x24, thus eliminating the tedious and time-consuming need to manually telephone in orders with limited windows of opportunity. Allocations^© enables web access for online ordering and reporting: Creating measurable and statistical information with advanced and current vessel arrival/departure/labor order information. Allocations^© was designed to interface into existing business-critical systems allowing a comprehensive business solution to meet your specific business critical requirements.

Check-In: Check-In^© is a paperless telephony-based solution which allows workers to remotely provide availability information and preferences for a job assignment, for the dispatch process: Eliminating the physical task and paper process of each worker driving to a hall to sign-in on sign-in log sheets. Check-In^© creates a paperless environment, capturing intelligent electronic data of workers availability, streamlines the process and increasing dispatch efficiencies.

Dispatch Hall Assistant (DHA): Dispatch Hall Assistant (DHA^©) was designed and developed with Maritime industry acceptance, having a primary objective of accelerating the dispatch process so longshoremen could get to their jobs sooner. DHA© assembles worker profiles and ships orders for the dispatch process. During the dispatch process, DHA^© applies your specific business rules to quickly and efficiently dispatch workers to the job site.

Disaster Prevention: VSI employs two state-of-the-art solutions for total data, application and system uptime, all the time solutions. The solutions include an appliance Network Storage solution as well as an agent-based individual workstation and mobile user solution.

Because downtime is never an option, the company ensures data, application, and system uptime, all the time, with its market-leading data backup, business continuity, and disaster recovery solution.

Disaster Response Services: Vistem service teams stand ready to help our customers recover should a natural disaster such as a hurricane, flood, tornado, earthquake, or even a tsunami interrupt normal business operations and destroy locally stored data.

Vistem Monitoring: Vistem provides our customers with peace of mind by leveraging our Intelligent Remote Monitoring and Management backed by our 24/7 Network Operations Center.

Rodney Shook: A Brief Background

Rodney Shook serves as President and Chief Software Architect of Vistem Solutions, Inc. He has an MBA from Pepperdine University and utilizes his background in Business to consult with clients on utilizing automation for business process re-engineering.

Rodney’s background is in leading development teams for Military and Satellite systems as a Software Architect as well as Program and Project Manager.

Rodney resides in Orange County with his wife and two children. He is a Coach for his daughter’s soccer team and involved with his children’s school as part of the site council.

“Our mission is to provide customer-focused solutions by working with our customers as a trusted partner, help leverage technology to meet their strategic business objectives and achieve lasting success. And to demonstrate leadership as a solution provider by providing information management services which measurably enhance our customer’s performance and profitability.”