IT Consultancy - Berkshire
QUANTITY SURVEYING COMPANY IMPROVES CLIENT SERVICE
THE CLIENT
Day and Johnson is a quantity surveying firm working in the construction industry. The company has 12 employees and is based in Wokingham, Berkshire with clients across Europe including IKEA, British Airways, Oracle and Virgin Direct.
Keeping tabs on their international client base requires effective, reliable communications. They use email as their main method of communication with clients, for example emailing large CAD files.
NEEDS AND CHALLENGES
Day and Johnson was finding that its clients were increasingly conducting business by email. This put strain on the company server and there was concern of the consequences of this increasing workload.
The company IT systems keeping control of this vital communication link were rudimentary and had been adapted over time to support their increasing usage. A PC had been adapted to use as a server. With the ever increasing volume of emails, the server was beginning to collapse under the strain.
The server was also running out of memory. “We did have a backup policy, but with the server constantly running out of memory, we had to resort to backing up vital company data on recordable CDs. These aren’t the most reliable media in the world and we were thus vulnerable by having to do this.” said Martin Anderson, Associate Director.
The company was concerned that the issues with its server could cause a catastrophic IT network collapse. With workloads constantly increasing, they investigated another IT solution.
THE IT SOLUTION
Dunston advised us that we needed to upgrade our server hardware and our software,” says Anderson. “They recommended a Microsoft® Small Business Server. It does exactly what we wanted it to do.”
Following an analysis, Dunston IT recommended an IT upgrade to Day and Johnson’s server hardware and its server software. The Dunston recommended hardware was HP whilst the recommended software was Microsoft® Windows® Small Business Server.
BENEFITS FOR CLIENT
RELIABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE
Microsoft Small Business Server provides a reliable backbone, supporting customer service.
MEMORY ISSUES RESOLVED
With the new server, the memory problems that previously plagued the company are gone.
RELIABLE BACKUP
Unstable recordable CDs are no longer relied on. Small Business Server helps by preserving memory through incremental IT backups which only require changes to be stored.
ROBUST SERVER
The robustness of the server means it allows the firm to work with partners on new ventures such as a partner extranet.
SMOOTH & EFFICIENT COMMUNICATIONS
The company now feel confident enough to buy accessories to add to the IT network and can offer an improved service to their clients.
REMOTE WORKING
Remote working is easier and staff can access each other’s email accounts.