Case Study:

Disability Initiative - IT Managed Services

Background

Disability Initiative (DI) was established in 1975 to provide specialist services to adults with physical disabilities and/or acquired brain injury. Operating from a purpose-built centre in Camberley, Surrey and a satellite service in Fleet, Hampshire, DI provides support and slow stream rehabilitation to clients. The services help people to maintain their independence and build and develop skills and abilities whilst always recognising personal choice, individual goals and with a fully person centred approach.

Lucy Brown the Chief Executive of DI contacted Arcom IT as DI wanted the same values from their IT providers, particularly in the areas of Support, Systems and Networking. Specific issues existed often creating frustrating and avoidable problems, such as extended periods of downtime with their on premise exchange server.

DI were looking for an IT partner that would not only be responsive but offer support, experience and skills to help them modernise their IT with a reliable, accessible and secure system that would deliver a better end user experience and also increase productivity

“Arcom IT have addressed our mail server issues by recommending we switch to 365. We went ahead with this recommendation and we are delighted both with the product, installation, and migration. We are hoping to move to Share Point, another recommendation from Arcom IT to future proof our systems. The communication and support we have received from Arcom IT has been outstanding. We receive regular reports on our Ticket history, progression of tickets and resolutions to our issues. Arcom IT have demonstrated their abilities to work with 3rd parties and work collaboratively to ensure any disruption to our service is minimalised and solutions are sought in a timely manner. Every team member at the support desk is knowledgeable, professional and helpful”

- Amanda Tye. Operations Manager. Camberley, Surrey

Solution

Before proposing any solution Arcom IT met with DI to understand their current setup and the specific issues arising and how these impacted on the user’s ability to perform their roles. In addition, Arcom needed to understand how Disability Initiative users worked, on what devices and from where.

After this Arcom IT undertook a full IT review to gauge a starting point and to allow us correctly design an IT solution for DI. We wanted to ensure it would be suitable for their future requirements.

The priority was to provide DI a stable email platform and Arcom IT proposed to migrate from the on-premise Exchange Server to Microsoft Exchange Online. Arcom IT in providing a RMM Service Desk solution has capabilities including ITSM, Helpdesk, IT management, IT Service. Monthly Support ticket reviews with an Account Manager means DI has greater visibility as to how their IT is performing along with the following support services as standard

Monthly CSP license report
Monthly service ticket analysis report
Quarterly Asset Summary report
Annual site survey to detail all services, equipment and networking with schematic report
Dedicated engineer for an on-site visit every quarter
Dedicated Account manager with regular client review meetings
Same day/next day pick up and drop off of new orders, equipment and repairs

Other changes proposed were a replacement of the old unsupported Desktop environment, further utilisation of MS services via MS 365 Non-Profit licencing, Azure AD, End Point Management and Teams. These provide better security and eliminate complexity of integrating and managing disparate devices. In addition to that it will allowed DI to decommission costly on premises servers.

By using Arcom IT not as a support company but as an IT Partner Disability Initiative have achieved the below: