Ascend Integrated
Technology Solutions, INC (Ascend) Integrating the Enterprise

The increasing need to maintain and keep up with large companies has led smaller companies to opt for tools such as cloud services in lieu of purchasing and maintaining a large hardware infrastructure. Larger organizations themselves are concerned with silos created within their infrastructure and maintaining consistency within their enterprise, limiting “one-off” system implementations. Existing one-off system implementations need to be integrated across the enterprise. These scenarios have created a need for implementers to understand the organizational processes and goals before implementing any systems. Enter Ascend—a specialty IT consulting firm—providing a fresh approach to system implementation and marketing. “We work alongside businesses by understanding their processes and procedures prior to automation. This process modeling is completed, managed, and updated using MS Visio, providing CIOs a way to view how existing systems interact with one another,” says Michael Brown, Founder, Ascend.

Using Microsoft’s tools and frameworks, such as BizTalk Server (BTS) and Windows Workflow Foundation (WF), Ascend has enabled system-to-system communication and eliminated disparity among systems across multiple enterprises. “The implementation of Microsoft tools and cloud services allows users to collaborate on the fly within a group. These tools have also been used in federal agencies, especially within the healthcare arena,” explains Brown. Moreover, Ascend has implemented, configured, and developed SharePoint based products for clients in healthcare— enabling them to share documents and information effectively within the business.

With an aim of providing cloud services and maintenance to clients, the company enables customers to focus on their goals by helping them handle the customers’ IT. Ascend also utilizes their data centers to host and test new products from Microsoft and as a “sandbox” for clients to test the company’s Implementations. In addition, the company is keen on deploying mobile applications, with a part of the company’s new infrastructure being used to host and build out mobile productivity applications.The company’s close association with Microsoft has enabled it to provide effective, well-configured and tested solutions to small and large organizations and companies alike.

For instance, one of the company’s clients—TI Verbatim Consulting (TIVC) was looking for an efficient way to collaborate around translation services and Human Resource documentation. “We came into work with the employees of TIVC, analyzing and understanding their current business processes and flows. This information was used to perform a solution analysis across multiple document management and portal software—available in the market today,” recalled Brown. After working with several hosted providers, the company helped the client to purchase and configure OneDrive and Office 365 to enable collaboration among the translators and HR consultants. This enabled TIVC to work with more clients—efficiently through editing and updating documentation on the fly using Office 365. “We assess the client’s current needs through modeling and interview techniques. We provide a system, which fits their business goals, implement and test the system, and train the clients on how to use the system,” explained Brown.

The implementation of Microsoft tools and cloud services allows users to collaborate and translate documents on the fly

Founded on the idea of respect for the client and for one’s work, Ascend provides a collegial environment where experts from different areas and backgrounds come together to share knowledge and information to help clients achieve their business goals. Moving forward, Ascend is focused on expanding its service offerings to more commercial clients in California, Chicago, and Asia. “We are now offering mobile application development and testing services to clients in healthcare and financial industries and we are continuing to grow,” said Brown. Working with Microsoft and other vendor products to provide Big Data analytics and business intelligence for companies through SQL Server, IIS, and ASP .NET, Brown believes that the analysis of large data sets is the way forward for many companies monetizing their data.