The Client
The Charles Derby Group of companies is a financial planning businesses offering advice across the full spectrum of financial services. A Staff of 200 expected to grow to 500.
Problem
The company was merging with other financial services businesses, therefore need to develop and enhance their IT infrastructure in a single location.
Overview
The company operated with a Small Business Server for admin staff and directors, with some of the businesses within the group having local servers and workstations. Everyone needed to use CRM software to manage the day to day running of the business. Email is an essential tool to communicate in this large organisation.
Solutions proposed
We proposed Cloud based email, hosted with a large ‘managed service’ provider. This allowed the business to capitalise on a much bigger technical infrastructure, employing advanced levels of redundancy and backup. This provided the nearest version of an ‘always up’ solution. Additionally, the business only pays for what it uses and has the potential for further growth as required, without the need to add more, expensive hardware.
As staff are spread throughout the country, files had to be organised in such a way that easy access was allowed without compromising security throughout the organisation. In addition to storage, the software provides a tool to improve collaboration and team working on projects.
Future Plans:
We are considering a Cloud based platform that encrypts files that are being uploaded and downloaded from the server.