Q&A With Accend Networks
Safety Detectives: Please share your company background, how you got started, and your mission.
Accend Networks: Accend is a 10-year-old company and was started by Paula Wong, its CEO and Founder, with over 25+ years of IT experience.
Paula started it out of some repeated bad experience in a corporate environment after putting in countless hours. First was getting laid off after putting in and working over 16-18 hours for a start-up and even invested her own money into that company (it was during the dot com boom) in hopes that it would return a great profit.
Unfortunately, the company went belly-up. The second was working for a Webex where Paula was terminated due to subordination right before her stock option was going to get vested. She also worked crazy hours at this company.
After two bad luck experiences, Paula felt the corporate environment wasn’t for sure and thought starting a company would be the next best venture.
Accend’s own is to be the go-to IT Solutions provider nationwide.
Apart from our typical network implementation and support projects, we often get requests to help clients install their commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) projects such as SolarWinds and Cisco Unified Communications Manager. Part of our process is to assess the current environment and understand the software purchased so that our consultants can take over seamlessly. The consultants who get assigned to assist clients typically have over 5+ years, sometimes up to 20+ years, in supporting products so that best practice recommendations can be made to guide the clients as needed. We either work with the customer or do the installation ourselves, depending on the client’s preference. Another COTS product is implementing VMware Horizon and Workspace ONE. This is just an example of our approach to getting things done.
In terms of area coverage, we provide advanced network services in California (both northern and southern), and nationwide with several clients on the east coast. The work can be on-site or remote; but luckily, with the availability of remote tools, we can easily support customers with just a phone call.
These are highlights of what we provide, but it is not limited to these examples. We offer dynamic network services since we’re flexible and understand client needs.
SD: What is the main service your company offers?
AN: Accend specializes in cybersecurity but we also provide network design, implementation, and support for data, voice, wireless, and video networks.
SD: What is something unique that helps you stay ahead of your competition?
AN: Accend is very efficient in delivering our services to our customers. We are also able to solve complex problems that our competition can’t.
SD: What do you think are the worst cyberthreats today?
AN:We keep hearing about ransomware attacks affecting many companies and it tends to increase. Not only is it targeting large and well-known enterprises and the government, but they are also costly.