Frequently Asked Questions

14 years of enterprise IT means we have answered most of these questions a thousand times. Here are the highlights.

About the Company

How long have you been in business?

Since 2012. 14 years and counting. Same company, same focus on enterprise IT for SMBs. No pivots, no rebrands.

How big is your team?

Around 80 staff in Beijing HQ, plus partner engineers in 35+ cities. Most engagements are handled by a small dedicated team — you will know your engineer by name.

Do you serve foreign companies in China?

Yes. We have multinational clients with China offices, JV partners, and foreign-invested entities. We can communicate in English for proposals and management reports while engineers handle on-site work in Chinese.

Do you have proper licenses?

Yes. ICP filing (Beijing ICP No. 12036077), ISP license (B1-20252821), ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 20000 (IT Service Management). Fully licensed and audit-ready.

About IT Outsourcing

What does an IT outsourcing engagement actually look like?

Most clients sign a monthly retainer. We provide remote helpdesk during business hours, on-site engineer dispatch within 4 hours for urgent issues, and routine on-site visits (weekly or monthly depending on the contract). You get a single point of contact, monthly reports, and quarterly reviews.

How is pricing typically structured?

Per-seat or per-device monthly rates, with a base service fee. Off-hours and project work (e.g. office relocation, security audit) are quoted separately. We are transparent — no hidden mark-ups on hardware procurement.

Can you take over from our existing IT vendor smoothly?

Yes, this is most of our work. We do a 1-2 week handover: documenting your environment, importing credentials and asset lists, and shadowing the outgoing team. By month 2 your users notice nothing changed except the support number.

What about emergencies on weekends?

Standard contracts cover business hours. We offer 24×7 add-ons for clients with critical operations (production lines, SaaS, e-commerce). Most office SMBs are fine with business-hours coverage plus weekend best-effort.

About Network & Security

Can you handle a multi-branch nationwide network?

Yes. About 30% of our clients have multiple locations. We design site-to-site VPN or SD-WAN, coordinate with local ISPs, and dispatch engineers in each branch city for installation.

What is sTrust and how is it different from regular VPN?

sTrust is our own zero-trust SDP product. Unlike traditional VPN where one stolen password gets full network access, sTrust binds login to a specific device, requires MFA on every new region, and has full audit trail. Used by both our own clients and direct customers. Free trial available at strust.siwenlide.com.

We need MLPS Level 3 (等保三级). Can you help?

Yes. We have walked dozens of clients through the certification — gap analysis, remediation, documentation, and audit support with the certifying body. Typical project takes 3-6 months.

Does your VPN see our traffic?

No. sTrust uses end-to-end encryption between client and the customer-deployed gateway. We operate the system but cannot read traffic content. Logs stay on your servers, retention is set by your IT policy.

About Data Backup

How often should backups run?

Depends on RPO. For most office data: daily incremental + weekly full is enough. For databases: every 15-60 min log shipping plus daily full. We design RPO/RTO to your business need, not to hit a sales quota.

How do you protect backups from ransomware?

Three layers: (1) immutable object storage (Aliyun OSS object lock or Tencent COS WORM); (2) air-gapped offline copies for critical data; (3) backup credentials separated from production AD. We test recovery quarterly.

Pricing & Process

How long until we get a proposal?

For standard outsourcing: a one-page quote within 24 business hours after the discovery call. For complex projects (multi-branch network rebuild, MLPS audit): 3-5 business days for a written proposal with phased pricing.

Do you offer free assessments?

Yes. A 30-minute remote scoping call is always free. For Beijing-area clients we also offer a free on-site visit (1-2 hours) to walk the environment before quoting.

Can we start small and expand?

Most engagements start with one service (e.g. helpdesk) and expand over 6-12 months as trust builds. There is no requirement to bundle. We earn the business one service at a time.

Question not answered?

Most of these answers depend on context. A 15-minute call usually clarifies what you actually need.

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