MB HAYNES empowers IT service delivery with a co-managed partner

About MB HAYNES

MB HAYNES is an employee-owned, multi-trade construction and service company based in North Carolina, serving residential, industrial, and commercial customers across the southeastern United States. Their services range from electrical, plumbing, and HVAC contracting to general construction and renewable energy solutions. For over a century, MB HAYNES has maintained a reputation for high-quality workmanship, safety, and customer satisfaction.

The Challenge

With more than 500 employees and a lean IT team, MB HAYNES had long worked with a third-party vendor to supplement its IT management. That vendor was experiencing account management churn, a revolving door of reps with no relationship or history with MB HAYNES. The lack of knowledge transfer created inefficiencies, requiring the internal team to give excessive guidance to new reps.

While MB HAYNES typically took an "if it's not broke, don't fix it" approach, the growing frustration surfaced an opportunity to make a change, with a goal of upskilling internal talent and gaining access to experts through a co-management model.

The Solution

Introduced through a mutual connection, Katalyst ran a discovery process to nail down the specifics and soon partnered on IT initiatives to move MB HAYNES forward.

Methodical onboarding and real escalation

Katalyst was methodical, providing clear communication and the ability to escalate issues beyond the main contact to a deep bench of experts. The team implemented a remote management tool so MB HAYNES could connect to end-user PCs, a key need, and helped them identify and resolve issues before they became bigger problems. "We could ask for things to pause or slow down at any point, when needed. It didn't feel like this was the first time they'd done it," said MB HAYNES' VP of Marketing and Digital Operations.

Infrastructure, security, and continuity

Katalyst took on IT infrastructure, security with 24/7 SIEM and log aggregation while co-managing MB HAYNES' EDR and firewalls, plus managed backups, help desk, and collaboration. An Engineering as a Service model means MB HAYNES can pull Katalyst in for questions and implementations without signing anything extra or paying ad-hoc fees. When the previous vendor could not deliver an offline disaster recovery solution in over a month, Katalyst delivered one in a couple of days.

The Results

In under a year, MB HAYNES saw significant improvements in IT service management.

Support quality has been excellent, often solving problems well beyond the initial scope. MB HAYNES now catches issues before they become bigger problems, with a remote management tool, patch management, and local support staff they can rely on. The team values that Katalyst's recommendations are vendor-agnostic, advising on process and changes without pressure. "The feel-good metric is much better now, and we're seeing a lot of data that we didn't see before," Yates said, adding that Katalyst is "one of the top five vendors I've worked with in my 28-year career."

Key Takeaways

• Co-management upskills the team. MB HAYNES gained access to experts while developing internal talent.
• Overcommunication builds trust. A methodical onboarding with real escalation paths won over a healthy skeptic.
• Security with continuity. 24/7 SIEM, co-managed EDR and firewalls, and a fast DR solution the prior vendor could not deliver.
• Flexible by design. An Engineering as a Service model means help on demand without ad-hoc fees.