Core
Right-sized for lean teams
What Core is for
Core is for the point where break-fix stops working. You have between five and twenty people, one main location, and IT problems that are individually small but collectively expensive — the same printer issue three times a month, a backup nobody has tested, a former employee whose account is still active.
The tier covers the operational fundamentals properly rather than covering everything shallowly. Someone answers the phone, patches go out on a schedule, backups get spot-checked, and there is a written escalation path when something bigger happens. What it does not include is a strategic layer — no quarterly roadmap, no vCIO retainer, no board reporting.
Most Core clients move to Essentials within eighteen months, usually because headcount grew or a client or insurer started asking security questions. That is a normal progression, not a failure of the tier, and we will tell you when we think you have outgrown it.
What changes for you
Predictable spend
A flat monthly figure instead of invoices that spike whenever something breaks. Budgeting for IT becomes a line item rather than a guess.
A known escalation path
Your team stops deciding whether a problem is worth calling about. There is one number, one queue, and a documented response expectation.
Backups you have actually tested
Quarterly restore checks on the systems that matter, so the first restore attempt is not during an incident.
What's included
Grouped by what it does for the business, rather than by the tools behind it.
Support and response
- Business-hours helpdesk with next-business-day response targets for standard requests
- Documented escalation path so an urgent issue does not sit in a queue
- Monthly operational summary; leadership check-ins available on request
- Remote-first support; scheduled onsite for structured projects via separate SOW
Monitoring and maintenance
- 24/7 monitoring on servers and critical network gear, with alert triage during business hours
- Scheduled patching for workstations and servers; emergency patches prioritised by risk
- Asset inventory so hardware age and warranty status are known before something fails
Protection and recovery
- Backup design with documented RPO and RTO targets
- Quarterly restore spot-checks on priority systems — a backup nobody has restored is a hope, not a backup
- Foundational endpoint protection with centralised visibility
- Guidance and rollout support for MFA on key accounts
Microsoft 365
- Tenant hygiene: licensed users, admin account separation, shared mailbox basics
- Joiner and leaver handling so departed staff lose access the same day
We scale the relationship as you grow; start lean without compromising on standards.
What Core does not include
Worth knowing before a call rather than after one.
- No quarterly business reviews or multi-year roadmap — that starts at Growth.
- Helpdesk is business hours. Monitoring runs 24/7, but after-hours alert triage is not included.
- Onsite work is quoted separately unless it is part of an agreed project.
- Not a fit if you have active compliance obligations with audit evidence requirements — look at Assurance.
Questions about Core
- For a single-site team of five to twenty, usually yes. Core is designed for exactly that situation. Where it starts to strain is when you add a second location, pass roughly twenty-five users, or take on a client or insurer who asks for security documentation.
- Monitoring runs 24/7 and we see the alert, but triage happens the next business morning under Core. If overnight response matters to your operation, Essentials adds documented after-hours escalation and Growth adds on-call engineering handoff.
- Yes. Assessments are scoped separately and are a common first engagement, whatever tier you are on. Findings feed a remediation backlog rather than sitting in a PDF.
- Discovery and documentation typically take two to three weeks for an environment this size, running alongside your current arrangement so there is no coverage gap. We do not cut over until we can support you properly.
Is Core enough if we have no internal IT person at all?
What counts as an emergency outside business hours?
Can we add a vulnerability assessment without moving up a tier?
How quickly can you onboard us?
Not quite right?
Compare all packages →Is Core the right fit?
Twenty minutes with an ECS engineer, and an honest answer either way. If a different tier suits you better, we will say so.