Frequently asked questions about IT services.
Response times, what the subscription covers, who does the work, how the handover runs. We answer with figures and contractual terms.
The company and the team.
How long have you been running IT for companies?
HQ was founded in Bucharest in 2004 and has been running company IT infrastructure for over 15 years. We work with Romanian companies and with the local offices of international groups, some of which have been clients since 2008, 2010 and 2012.
Who does the work, your own team or subcontractors?
Remote support, monitoring and administration are handled by the HQ team. On site, in Bucharest and the surrounding area we come with our own people, and elsewhere in the country we work with local partners we have vetted and coordinate directly. The procedure and the standard stay ours, and so does responsibility for the result.
What certifications does the team hold?
Our specialists hold ITIL 4 Foundation, Fortinet NSE level 4, Microsoft 365 Certified: Fundamentals, CompTIA ITF+, Bitdefender GravityZone, Ubiquiti UniFi and HPE, Lenovo and Dell hardware engineer certifications. Our vendor competencies cover Microsoft, Cisco, VMware, Dell EMC, Linux and Acronis.
What references can you provide?
We publish the logos of a selection of clients and three recommendations carrying a name, a role and a company. The long engagements are verifiable: Beijer Ref has worked with us for 8 years, Alfa Laval since 2010, Polon-Alfa since 2012 and Innobyte since 2008.
What we administer.
What does your administration cover?
Microsoft 365 accounts and licences, physical and virtual servers (Windows and Linux), network equipment, workstations and backup. Every managed device runs a monitoring agent (RMM) that reports its state continuously.
Do you work with cloud infrastructure?
Yes. We administer Azure, AWS and Google infrastructure from 50 € a month, secure cloud backup from 30 € per 500 GB, and site replication with disaster recovery from 100 € a month. Many companies run hybrid: servers on site alongside Microsoft 365 and a cloud backup.
Do you handle equipment procurement?
Yes. At the audit we inventory what you have and tell you what works and what needs replacing. If you want to avoid large capital outlays (CAPEX), we can supply the equipment on a monthly subscription (Hardware as a Service): a notebook from 20 €, a printer or multifunction from 20 €, network equipment from 20 €.
Do you help with new implementations and upgrades?
Yes, through IT consulting: audit, planning, migration and implementation. You can come to us for a one-off decision with no subscription, or fold the work into the monthly contract. The recommendations come from infrastructure we administer day to day.
Response times and coverage.
What response times do you guarantee?
We guarantee by contract (SLA) a response within 1 hour for critical incidents and within 4 hours for everything else. The targets are identical across all packages. In practice the average time to intervene is around 25 minutes, and the average ticket is resolved in around 48 minutes.
Does monitoring run outside business hours?
Monitoring runs 24/7 on every managed device. Equipment reports its state continuously, and a share of faults are fixed remotely before the working day starts.
Are interventions unlimited?
Yes. Interventions are part of the monthly subscription, remote or at your office, with no hourly billing and no cap on requests.
Do we work with the same people every time?
Yes. Your requests reach the same specialists, who already know your setup. We document the configuration and the history of every intervention, so continuity does not depend on one person remembering.
Do you cover offices in other cities?
Yes, coverage is nationwide. Remote support reaches anywhere in the country, and for on-site work we travel with our own team and through our network of local partners. The contractual times stay the same for every location.
Security and continuity.
Is endpoint protection part of the subscription?
The Security package, at 45 € per user a month, includes Microsoft 365 Business Premium with endpoint protection and managed security. The Enterprise package, at 55 €, adds data loss prevention from Microsoft 365 E3 on top.
How do we know a backup can actually be restored?
We run scheduled test restores and document the result of each one. An untested backup stays an assumption; we confirm the data is intact before a real restore is ever needed.
What happens if the main office becomes unavailable?
Data replicated to the cloud stays reachable whatever the state of the office. Recovery follows the plan agreed at implementation, within the contractual response times (SLA).
How the engagement starts.
How does the handover run?
We start with an audit of the current infrastructure, move on to a plan, and take over administration gradually, without interrupting your team. We install the monitoring agent and organise access, and the first month begins with a clear action plan. The exact timeline comes out of the audit, because it depends on the size of the company and the state of the infrastructure.
What happens to the equipment we already own?
We take it over. At the audit we inventory everything, tell you what works and what needs an upgrade, and replacements happen gradually, at the pace and budget of the company.
Do we need to prepare anything beforehand?
No. The inventory and the priorities come out of the audit, and we organise access together with you, without interrupting your work.
Contract and pricing.
How is the price calculated?
Per user, per month. Five packages, from 25 € (User Desk, IT support and administration) to 55 € (Enterprise, with Microsoft 365 E3). Each package adds a Microsoft 365 layer on the same operational base, so you can give each employee the package they actually need.
What is billed separately?
Infrastructure: server administration at 30 € a month, network equipment at 30 € per site, cloud backup at 30 € per 500 GB, DNS hosting and a presentation website at 10 €. Equipment we supply on subscription is also billed separately.
Is a long-term contract required?
No. The published prices apply to a 12-month commitment, but you can also work with us with no minimum term, in which case the rates are 10% higher. All prices are quoted without VAT.
Do you put response times in the contract?
Yes, always. Response times are written into the contract (SLA), alongside a clear split of responsibilities between the two parties.
We answer the questions specific to your company too.
The free audit starts from your actual infrastructure: what equipment exists, what risks are open and what running it would cost. The report is yours to keep, whatever you decide.