LED shapes up with Claranet

Well-being is an ethos that LED looks to promote throughout its operations. Staff work across locations, with management enjoying home access to IT networks to support the extended opening hours of facilities. Looking to the wider community, LED works hard to improve access to its facilities by maintaining active communications via its website and social media channels, and by keeping its programmes fun and interactive.

The challenge
With work/life balance in mind, LED was keen to make multi-site and home working more interactive and productive, but weren’t confident that their infrastructure was capable of delivering these functions in an efficient and secure way. LED had outgrown its previous operating environment, which had become unresponsive, unreliable and offered little potential for development, explained Susan Pym, LED’s Head of Finance and IT:

“LED’s previous infrastructure was ageing and needed upgrading. The IT network had evolved over time and had become fragmented with limited capacity for development and arrangements for business continuity. Regular outages were being experienced and IT staff were reacting to service problems rather than exploiting potential developments.

Bandwidth, speed and reliability limited what we could achieve on the old infrastructure and there was no easy way to link our sites into a cohesive private network from which staff could access email, share information and work collaboratively. This held us back because we were not in a position to take on new projects and work to take the business forward,” she continued.

Maintaining and engaging with an active membership-base, integral to the ongoing success of the organisation, also posed its own set of difficulties. Susan added: “We rely upon our systems to keep track of and to engage with our members, to make bookings and to take payments. Yet even making small administrative changes, like updating our passwords, required external assistance. As a result, we suffered inefficiencies and a poor customer experience.

To complicate matters further, we found ourselves in a position whereby we were managing a number of suppliers at the same time. As and when the systems did go down, it was difficult to know who was at fault and how the issues could be resolved. We needed a single supplier, with a single point-of-contact,” she continued.

The solution
With concerns around the resiliency of their hosting environment, and with future expansion in mind, LED sought to refresh their hosting infrastructure and partner with an organisation that could offer peace of mind, an innovative roadmap for the future and the skills to complement LED’s in-house teams.

LED turned to Claranet to design, implement and manage a new high-performance application hosting environment and network from the ground up, to keep its employees connected securely to critical line-of-business data and applications, and create a solid foundation for future projects and expansion - without costing more money or compromising on performance.

“Essentially we needed a complete overhaul and to start afresh. Claranet understood what we needed immediately - so we had complete confidence that they would be able to deliver something that was built around us.”

Combining their expertise in hosting and networks, Claranet designed a bespoke, highly available and scalable hosting platform that could satisfy LED’s needs, was compatible with existing in-house skills, and could evolve with plans for future growth - all managed via a dedicated portal.
Mindful of LED’s designs on flexible working, the solution includes the provision of email, video conferencing, desktop sharing, document management, presence and secure instant messenger. Claranet’s managed desktop service facilitates the standardised deployment of operating systems and applications. By standardising their desktops, LED has been able to reduce their support overheads, freeing up time whilst improving user satisfaction.

Crucially, all of these applications are delivered over Claranet’s Virtual Private Network (VPN) which runs exclusively across Claranet’s core MPLS network. Claranet takes responsibility for managing the network, to ensure high availability and performance, while also ensuring the application performance to the user is prioritised in line with the business expectation.

The benefits
LED saw dramatic improvements to performance immediately, whilst keeping their network at the same size; a testament to the careful specification of system requirements at the beginning of the process. This has had knock-on effects in terms of the efficiency of staff and the speed of customer experience.

Susan explained: “We now have a remote access tool which is robust; our people can have nearly the same experience when logging on from home as at work. Managers are now able to support the business throughout LED’s extended opening hours, working both from home and from any LED site helping the Trust’s area-based operations. Managers and staff enjoy a seamless experience, retrieving and sharing files from the “cloud” and working collaboratively. This makes the business much more productive because they are working within an environment which is suited to the task.
“We went from having a workforce that felt under pressure operationally due to the unreliability of our systems, to one that was able to think more strategically – about how we can use social media to increase footfall and how we use technology to drive customer service. For example, we now have home access for customers, online booking and payment for facilities, and “swipe” access to reduce congestion and enable reception staff to focus on service. It’s all about adding value to our customers”.

Control has been a primary benefit of Claranet’s platform. LED’s IT department now has complete in-house control of email, firewall changes and platform configuration via a dedicated portal; and where they lack in-house skills, Claranet is able to assist.

Equipped with a platform that is capable of supporting its staff, customers and future growth ambitions, LED can now focus on building the business, rather than struggling to “keep the lights on”. Susan concluded:

“Everybody is very pleased. We now have fewer helpdesk calls than we had before. As such, the IT department can now focus on using technology to drive the business forward, rather than just maintaining a frail infrastructure. The platform provided has given us the headroom to think strategically about technology and how we can use it to grow the business. Claranet understood the imperatives, working closely with us and going the extra mile that was needed to help us progress. We can now face outwards, listen and react to the markets and begin engaging more actively with our existing and a new customer base.”