Throughout the past few months, we have seen organisations' internal teams forced to adapt their processes, infrastructure and strategies in ways that would previously have been inconceivable. Key to the success of this process has been the support of external service providers, who have complemented companies' internal expertise and freed IT teams to focus their attention where it is most needed. As it becomes clear that the distributed workforce is here to stay, such partnerships are going to be more important than ever moving forward.
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Microsoft Teams has rapidly established itself as the default tool for professional communication and collaboration, powering interconnected workflows in the era of hybrid working. However, the way licensing for Teams works with your wider Microsoft ecosystem is about to change, which means it is essential that you establish how your licensing arrangements will be affected and take steps to maintain the levels of performance and cost-control you depend on.
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Although digital transformation amongst Legal firms has typically been comparatively slow compared to other sectors, the journey has picked up speed over the course of the last decade.
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Organisations' demands of their IT infrastructure continue to evolve at an unprecedented rate, with the drive for growth and innovation needing to be balanced against the need to maintain cost control, visibility, and - crucially, cyber security. Numerous solutions have emerged in response to these challenges, but one of the most pivotal questions organisations must answer is whether to host their critical data and applications on-site, or in the Cloud.
Let's explore the respective advantages and disadvantages of both approaches, and then consider whether the increasing sophistication of modern workloads demand a new approach...
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The Hospitality & Leisure sector is inherently people-focused, with the personal touch making all the difference to guests' experiences. But, as we have already discussed on this blog, the multiple lockdowns in response to COVID-19 have forced to the entire sector to adopt new ways of engaging with guests, utilising next-gen smart technology to deliver truly bespoke experiences and streamlined access to a wide range of services.
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As part of an ongoing effort to offer greater consistency and transparency across their full range of solutions, Microsoft have recently announced several pricing updates.
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Powering seamless communication and collaboration for the UK's leading provider of high-performance sports support services
About the UK Sports Institute
Founded in 2002 under the name 'The English Institute of Sport', the UK Sports Institute (UKSI) provides leading-edge support for athletes competing in major worldwide sporting events, delivered by some of the world's leading practitioners, in close collaboration with coaches and performance directors.
Challenges
Given the nature of its work UKSI employees have always been highly dispersed, working closely with athletes and their teams, both onsite and at a number of regional performance centres. As a result, the organisation was an early adopter of the hybrid working model, designing and developing its ICT infrastructure in order to provide all employees with maximum flexibility in terms of how and where they work.
To this end, they have always worked closely with trusted managed service providers, with key services including LAN, WiFi, and a managed service desk. This culture of constant improvement eventually initiated a full Cloud transformation, for additional levels of control and scalability, and an early move towards Microsoft Teams as the primary platform for cross-site communication and collaboration.
In order to build on these successes, the UKSI made the decision to partner with an MSP who would not only be able to maintain its existing working model, but provide a dedicated team to provide hands-on support and guidance around future opportunities for improvement. To this end, a call for tenders was put out, with an emphasis on potential partners' willingness to delve deep into the UKSI's requirements and build a strong rapport with its teams.
Solution
Throughout a rigorous tender process, Exponential-e's readiness to work closely with the UKSI's own teams, clear understanding of their requirements and long-term business goals, and readiness to deliver truly bespoke solutions based on this quickly made a positive impression. As a result, Exponential-e was selected as the UKSI's new MSP.
A six-month handover period was established, in order to ensure a smooth transition, avoid any disruptions to employee's day-to-day work, and allow the dedicated account team time to establish themselves and get to know the UKSI's own teams, systems, and processes. This included the account team engaging directly with the incumbent supplier and working through the UKSI's comprehensive Operations Manual, in which all established systems and processes were clearly documented, while also minimising any overlap between suppliers and the extra costs that would result.
This clear communication and close collaboration between teams from both organisations ensured a seamless transition process, with Exponential-e able to take on the managed service desk function, providing employees at all levels of the UKSI with a single point of contact for any technical issues. End users reported no discontinuity between the old and news systems, ensuring disruption for all employees, wherever they were located, was avoided.
Since the final handover, the relationship between the UKSI and its dedicated account team at Exponential-e has continued to evolve. This has not been a simple case of maintaining the existing infrastructure, but also drawing on the expertise of Exponential-e's expert consultants and evolving range of professional services to develop the UKSI's internal expertise, drawing on an 'innovation fund' that was established at the outset of the contract.
This included hands-on technical support and consultancy during the change of name from 'The English Institute of Sport' to UKSI, ensuring all necessary updates within the Microsoft ecosystem had been properly executed prior to the designated launch date. Close collaboration between both teams ensured a completely seamless update across all systems, avoiding any unexpected disruptions.
Solution benefits
- A seamless transition process, with zero disruption of established processes or day-to-day operations
- A dedicated account team, providing hands-on support and helping maintain a culture of ongoing improvement
- A single point of contact for all technical issues, in the form of a fully managed service desk
- Access to world-class consultancy and professional services via a dedicated 'innovation fund'
A proven system for developing a world-class digital strategy
DX can empower your employees with always-available applications, wherever they are, and engage your customers with multiple touchpoints that can be accessed 24/7. It can also increase your company's growth, enabling you to adapt, to diversify and to transform your product to suit new market conditions.
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High-performance connectivity and seamless Cloud migration delivers the foundation for world-class legal services.
About TWM Solicitors
Originally established in 1799, TWM Solicitors is one of the South-East's leading law firms, with more than 220 employees based across Surrey and London offering an end-to-end range of legal services.
The Challenge
With staff operating out of multiple dispersed offices, TWM required high-performance connectivity between all sites, enabling seamless, highly secure collaboration between teams. Dissatisfied with the quality delivered by their incumbent provider, TWM's IT team engaged Exponential-e as their new connectivity partner, beginning with a complete revamp of the WAN.
The Solution
To achieve a smooth transition to the new network, with zero operational disruption, Exponential-e and TWM deployed a 'shadow' WAN that would ensure connections would remain available to all staff while the migration was completed over the course of six weeks. A key priority for the new network was achieving complete consistency for all offices - a significant challenge given the diverse nature of TWM's premises, which ranged from modern offices to a Victorian building and a sixteenth-century farmhouse. Close collaboration between teams at Exponential-e and TWM, combined with rigorous testing of the new infrastructure before the go-live date, ensured this was achieved across all sites, delivering an immediate return on the initial investment.
The close partnership established throughout this initial deployment was developed further when Exponential-e took over the management of the network's switches, allowing TWM's own IT team to refocus their attention on other business-critical projects.
The partnership entered its second stage when TWM made the decision to migrate from its legacy ISDN-based telephony to a Cloud-based platform, for which Exponential-e provided the foundation in the form of a dedicated VLAN, with its own gateway and firewall, which involved segmenting the existing network and switches, ensuring that that TWM's familiar quality of service would not be compromised.
With the new network infrastructure now established as the foundation, the decision was made to streamline and optimise TWM's VDI environment by migrating to Azure Virtual Desktop, minimising any jitter and ensuring staff at all their offices would enjoy a consistently seamless experience, particularly when accessing the Practice Management System (PMS). Beyond the immediate improvements in terms of performance and availability, this would serve as the foundation for a phased migration from on-premises servers to highly scalable, Cloud-based infrastructure.
These migrations were conducted on a site-by-site basis, with Exponential-e providing hands-on support throughout, ensuring all staff were properly trained in the new systems and able to make full use of their capabilities as quickly as possible. This included roundtable functions around Cloud transformation and cyber security, along with access to pre-sales personnel's specialist knowledge.
Teams from TWM and Exponential-e continue to work closely together in this regard, migrating more legacy on-premises systems into the Cloud, with the end goal being a completely centralised infrastructure that will provide the IT team with full control and visibility at all times, ensuring any potential issues can be proactively identified and resolved, and new teams and offices effortlessly onboarded.
Beyond the quality of the underlying connections, the success of this project has really hinged on the team at Exponential-e's willingness to work closely with us throughout the design of the new infrastructure, and throughout every stage of its deployment. We've got a strong foundation to build on now, and the next phases are already yielding good things.
Alan Barrett, Head of IT, TWM Solicitors.
Solution Benefits
- A seamless migration to a new, high-performance WAN, delivering consistent networking quality across a range of diverse sites.
- High-quality, Cloud-based telephony, powered by a dedicated VLAN, optimising cross-site communication and collaboration.
- Providing the interconnection between Exponential-e's WAN and Azure through an ExpressRoute link, supporting Cloud migration objectives.
- An intelligent, phased migration process, avoiding any disruption while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.
- Expert support and consultation from a dedicated account team and a range of technical specialists.
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