legacy systems impacting business growth
The challenge: A growing SME with 150 employees across 3 locations experienced a growth plateau due to ageing, unreliable telecommunications and IT systems.
Legacy pain points:
- Expensive, incompatible mix of internet services and phone systems.
- Frequent service downtime and performance severely impacting productivity.
- Lack of investment in technology service improvement despite previous business expansion.
Our solution:
- Analysis of business needs and infrastructure problems.
- Competitive tender process to identify the best solutions at optimal cost.
- Full infrastructure upgrade including high-speed internet, cloud migration and telephony upgrade.
- Ongoing support throughout implementation and subsequent managed service.
Results:
- £250,000+ in tangible savings from reduced costs and improved efficiency.
- Immediate boost to staff performance and productivity thanks to reliable systems and training.
- Enhanced agility and future-proofing infrastructure for sustained growth.
- Secure networks providing peace of mind from cyber threats.
More than just cost saving:
- Improved communication and collaboration across locations.
- Increased employee morale and retention.
- Access to new business opportunities by ability to focus on business growth.
- Future-proofed infrastructure.
- Trust in service provision and delivery.
We were invited to collaborate with a busy small to medium-sized enterprise that had 150 employees working across three sites in the Midlands and South East.
Although profitable, expansion had stalled due to its inadequate telecommunications and IT infrastructure, the business wanted to improve the reliability of the telephone system alongside provision of high speed and reliable, internet service. The company had large inbound and outbound telephony and a heavy reliance on the usage of IT across all three locations.
The legacy telephone systems were expensive and incompatible, consisting of a mix of VOIP and analogue services. The incumbent service provider was a close friend of the CEO, however that proved to be a challenge and the issues dragged on, impacting the business for too long before resolution.
Despite the presence of an onsite IT manager, the IT infrastructure was outdated and unstable, a result of a lack of investment and service development, particularly in light of the expansion and then plateau of the business. On-site servers regularly failed and provided inconsistent and frustrating performance, which resulted in poor productivity as a consequence of the substantial amount of downtime.
After performing site visits to determine the scale of the problem, as well as analysing the expenditure, we carried out an audit of the infrastructure and put together a plan to fully update, moving away from locally deployed services in the process.
Following the audit, we held a competitive tender process, providing the potential vendors with a thorough specification document.
The end result was a successful selection process followed by a project completed in just under seven months and with tangible savings of over £250,000.
A review of mobile technologies was also conducted, in addition to the high-speed internet, to support the service alongside the delivery of flexible telephony.
Our team provided ongoing support throughout the implementation process.
The largest wins, in this particular scenario, were not just the financial benefits, although they provided a significant upside, but the resultant tech reliability, staff performance improvement, and complimentary benefits. (Automated failover systems, Improvement to staff motivation, wellbeing and retention – due to better systems and training, as well as further associated benefits).
Whether your business is facing financial, operational, marketing, sales/business development, or tech challenges, we are here to provide support to you. We work with you to identify the areas of your business which require immediate support and prepare solutions to those that may impact future growth. Our objective is to address all challenges and assist you, resolve the problem areas so that you can return to delivering growth.
We serve as trusted, independent advisors, partnering with you to establish the future direction of your business, explore new opportunities and provide a listening ear to understand the pressures you are experiencing.
You may also be considering growing the business through acquisition or preparing to sell your business, either way book a FREE discovery call.
We support SMEs facing:
- Financial challenges
- Operational inefficiencies
- Marketing and sales struggles
- Technological roadblocks
- Strategic planning through mergers, acquisitions or disposals
We only work with businesses that are committed to working with us. It’s a matter of trust and reputation.