Reading this as the person who signs the invoice, or the person who carries the pager?
Working alongside
01.
What you should be getting
Most businesses do not leave their IT provider over one disaster. They leave after months of small things. Here is what the difference actually looks like on your invoice and your calendar.
| Break-fix / ad-hoc IT | Protocol IT | |
|---|---|---|
| When you find out about a problem | When a staff member calls you | Monitoring flags it, often before anyone notices |
| What it costs | Hourly, unpredictable, worst in a bad month | One fixed per-seat monthly fee |
| After hours | Voicemail | Covered, with a named escalation path |
| Patching and updates | When someone remembers | Scheduled, reported, evidenced |
| Security | Antivirus and hope | AI detection on endpoints and identities, 24/7 |
| AI tools your staff already use | Nobody is tracking it | Inventoried, permissioned and governed |
| If you leave | Passwords in someone’s head | Documented handover, your data, your accounts |
02.
Where the AI actually sits
AI that only cuts our headcount is worth nothing to you. These three are the places it changes what you get.
Detection & response
AI threat detection, human escalation
Behaviour models watch every endpoint and identity around the clock. Anything real goes to a Perth engineer, not a ticket queue in another timezone.
Adoption
Copilot and agents, rolled out safely
Most Copilot rollouts fail on permissions — the AI surfaces files people were never meant to see. We fix the sharing model first, then turn it on.
Governance
Data governance you can hand to an auditor
Which AI tools your staff use, what data they touch, where it goes and who approved it. Written down, reviewed quarterly, ready for a client questionnaire.
03.
Co-managed: we take the load, not the job
If you already employ someone technical, you do not need to replace them. You need to stop them being the only line of defence at 9pm on a Friday.
| Your IT person keeps | Applications, users, the business relationship, roadmap decisions |
| We take | 24/7 monitoring, patching, backup verification, after-hours and on-call |
| We add | Security tooling and threat response that is not economic for one site to license |
| You keep control of | Admin credentials, tenancy ownership and the exit door |
Anonymous client snapshot
A Perth medical group, 40 seats
- Before — One internal IT coordinator, an hourly break-fix contractor, no after-hours cover.
- Change — Co-managed: Protocol IT took monitoring, patching, security and after-hours; the coordinator kept clinical systems.
- Result — Figures to be confirmed by Protocol IT before launch.
Client names withheld. Real figures to be supplied by Protocol IT before launch.
03b.
The same people, every time you call
No offshore call centre and no rotating account manager. You get a named engineer in Canning Vale who knows how your business is wired.
Images pulled from the current Protocol IT site — swap in real team photography before launch.
04.
Two plans. One monthly number.
Per seat, billed monthly. The health check sets your exact rate — these are the shapes, not the invoice.
Plan A
Managed IT
Everything that keeps the business running, at a fixed cost.
Custom · priced after health check
- Unlimited remote and on-site support
- 24/7 monitoring and alerting
- Patching, updates and asset reporting
- Microsoft 365 administration
- Backup and recovery, tested
- Named Perth engineer and account review
Plan B
Managed IT + AI Security
Everything in Plan A, plus detection, response and AI governance.
Custom · priced after health check
- Everything in Managed IT
- AI threat detection on endpoints and identities
- 24/7 response with human escalation
- Copilot and AI tool rollout, permissions first
- AI usage register and data governance pack
- Quarterly security report for your board or auditor
05.
Find out what you should be paying
A free health check on your current environment, then a fixed monthly number within 24 hours. No contract to see it.
- You send five details
Under a minute. No phone number required to start. - Free health check
Remote review of security posture, patching, backup and licensing. - Fixed price within 24 hours
A per-seat number and what it covers, in writing. - Migration plan, if you go ahead
Dated, staged, with your current provider still running.
Prefer to call? +61 8 9455 1116 · Unit 3A, 160 Bannister Road, Canning Vale WA
06.
Common questions
We already have a provider. Why switch?
Often you should not. The health check tells you where you stand either way — several businesses have taken the report back to their existing provider and stayed.
Will switching break something?
Migration runs to a dated plan with your current provider still in place. Nothing is cut over until the replacement is proven.
Are we locked into a contract?
Month-to-month after the initial term. Your tenancy, credentials and data stay in your name from day one.
Is AI touching our client data?
Detection models run on telemetry, not document contents. Anything that reads business data is listed in your AI register with a named approver.
Do you work with our internal IT person?
Yes — co-managed is a significant part of what we do, particularly for 50+ seat businesses.
Are you approved for government work?
Protocol IT holds a place on the WA government CUAICTS2021 panel across planning, implementation and operations.
Find out what you should be paying.
A free health check, then a fixed number within 24 hours. If we’re not better value, we’ll say so.