The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group (MOHG) is the award-winning owner and operator of some of the world’s most well-known luxury hotels. With 18 luxury properties in Europe, Asia, and the Americas and three under development, the $228 million chain employs 6,000 personnel.

But with just 50 IT employees on staff, most of whom are based in Hong Kong, providing ‘round the clock IT support for the growing company presents quite a challenge.

So two years ago, Geoff McClelland, vice president of hotel technology development for MOHG, began to consider the outsourcing option. As the hotel chain continued to expand, McClelland needed to find a way to build a reliable infrastructure and manage the company’s growing network in a way that would allow for the flexibility the burgeoning business would need while keeping costs low.

Infrastructure maintenance and monitoring didn’t seem like a core competency for MOHG and was therefore ripe for outsourcing. However, the hotel’s employees needed solid, uninterrupted support to provide impeccable service to its discerning clientele, which was a core competency. As MOHG CEO Edouard Ettedgui stated in the company’s most recent annual report, “We have a well-known and well-respected brand, steeped in the values of the Orient, and built on a strong company culture of delighting our guests through excellent service.”

McClelland put out an RFP to outsourcers for the creation and management of its IT infrastructure. After competitive analysis of the proposals as well as consideration of the in-sourcing option (which would require additional personnel and capital investment), MOHG chose to partner with Bedford, Ma.-based InteQ as its application service provider. MOHG had already been using InteQ to manage its Internet hosting environment.

The key factors in the decision to outsource infrastructure maintenance and monitoring to InteQ were cost, the skill sets required, and the ability to be responsive to end-users. Beyond that, MOHG–like most mid-market IT customers-- was looking for a good cultural fit. “The culture at InteQ is collaborative and they act as a direct extension of (MOHG),” explains McClelland.

InteQ provides MOHG with its InfraSolve product, which monitors and manages application, database, network and systems infrastructure by providing problem identification, diagnostics and resolution, and its InfraPortal, a secure, Web-based reporting tool that provides views into the availability and performance of the business application infrastructure. Inteq also delivers 24x7 help desk support via a Web-enabled application available to any desktop throughout the company, from New York to Bangkok.

The move has not only provided necessary support for hotel employees around the world, it has freed up MOHG’s limited IT personnel to focus on adding new functionality and developing innovative services for the hotel’s discriminating clientele in an increasingly competitive market.