We have had the privilege of working with some truly progressive companies. Each one of them recognised the value of emerging technologies. By adopting them, they have disrupted the "best practices" of their respective industries.
CASE STUDY 1: cloud migration
Project Overview
The client is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) with offices in Sydney and Melbourne with teams of 35 and 28 respectively. Both running in-house servers, managed by outsourced IT support and one in-house IT coordinator.
Running Windows servers in each office for emails, files and applications.
Challenges
Solution
Outcome
The client is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) with offices in Sydney and Melbourne with teams of 35 and 28 respectively. Both running in-house servers, managed by outsourced IT support and one in-house IT coordinator.
Running Windows servers in each office for emails, files and applications.
Challenges
- VPN connection between the offices are unstable
- Frequent email drop-outs causing disruption
- Server downtimes up to 3-4 hours a week
- Ongoing costs of upgrading hardware and software on each of the Servers
- Inconsistent onsite back-ups
- Expensive and yet ineffective outsourced IT support
- Travelling staff couldn't easily access work emails, files and applications out of their offices.
Solution
- All emails were migrated to Google Apps for Work
- All documents and files were uploaded to a private cloud
- Insightly, a cloud-based CRM was chosen to replace the Microsoft CRM running on the server
- A Cloud-based application was sourced to replace the multiple applications used for student registration and processing
- Both servers were made redundant
Outcome
- No more server drop-outs
- Staff can now access all emails files and applications when traveling or working from home
- Outsourced IT support function is no longer needed
- Almost 80% drop in annual IT expenditure
- Shift in IT expenses from a Capex to Opex model
- Measurable increase in staff productivity
Case Study 2: Mobile Strategy
Project Overview
A well established architecture firm with offices in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore with 135 staff in total. Most of them work 40% of their time out of the office, 15% from home and 45% on business travel.
Multiple in-house servers managed by an in-house IT team of 5.
Challenges
Solution
Outcome
A well established architecture firm with offices in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore with 135 staff in total. Most of them work 40% of their time out of the office, 15% from home and 45% on business travel.
Multiple in-house servers managed by an in-house IT team of 5.
Challenges
- Access to emails and files out of the office is slow and inconsistent leading to staff copying data off the server and updating the server when back at the office
- Staff carrying sensitive company information and accessing emails on their personal mobile devices
- No clear clause in the IT policy covering the use of personal mobile devices in the office and for work purposes
- Steadily increasing IT expenses mainly related to constant hardware upgrades to obsolete servers.
Solution
- Local servers were made redundant and all data and applications were moved to virtual servers hosted by Rackspace.
- The DeCent-IT Framework methodology was applied, creating an evolving IT policy encompassing clear BYOD rules.
- Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution MaaS360 was deployed
Outcome
- 63% drop in annual IT related expenses
- Emails, documents and application access out of the office is stable with no connection or drop out errors
- All company related data on optimised personal and company owned mobile devices have been secured using MDM features
- The company now boasts a flexible yet secure and effective IT policy across the group