overview
The Preston Associates – an executive coaching consultancy – moves to new offices and to the Cloud to provide a comprehensive business solution, covering IT, communications and telephony.
customer profile
The Preston Associates are an executive coaching consultancy based in London, UK, who provide a full range of executive coaching and mentoring services to businesses and high net worth individuals and families.
Business Situation
TPA conducts coaching assignments utilising the facilities of its London offices and at client locations throughout the world. Employees and associates alike, require high quality and reliable communications encompassing telephone, email and document collaboration.
The company were using an IT solution based on on-premises servers providing email, document/file storage and an analogue telephone system with a local PBX. They were using a mix of Windows and Apple PCs, Apple iPhone, Blackberry and Nokia smart phones.
As a result of expansion and other needs of the business, the company decided to relocate to new offices in London, Knightsbridge.
It was decided to review their business requirements and assess current solutions. At this time, one of their associates was on an assignment in Singapore and decided to attend a Microsoft Cloud Computing seminar. Suitably impressed and intrigued the associate enquired, to whom they may approach in the UK to obtain further information and provide assistance to move to the Cloud. Pygmalion, a UK based Microsoft Partner was recommended as a result of high-quality services provided previously to Microsoft Singapore.
Pygmalion was contacted and subsequently assisted TPA to define their business requirements, provide a proposal, and present a review of modern and cost-effective solutions for IT and telephony.
solution
After reviewing TPA's business requirements, Pygmalion submitted a proposal together with costs outlining a recommendation to migrate their IT to Microsoft’s Cloud BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite), and also that they implement a Cloud-based IP PBX telephony solution.
This meant that TPA could remove complex IT and telephony equipment completely from their business and offices, by moving it to the Cloud. They could then access their IT and telephony services, using an internet connection, from their offices and anywhere in the world. This could be achieved using a variety of end-user devices including PCs, smartphones, IP phones.
Pygmalion provided the following services, and also provides a service desk and support for the whole IT business solution.
- Migration of emails stored in Exchange, POP servers, and local/PST mail stores to BPOS Online Exchange.
- Configuration of email clients for both Windows and MAC based PCs/laptops, utilizing remote support tools where necessary.
- Creation of a SharePoint portal for document management.
- Provision of end-user training on SharePoint.
Benefits
- An enterprise-class IT and telephony solution operating from the Cloud with a low fixed monthly charge.
- Removal of the need to make a high capital investment in an IT and telephony infrastructure.
- Improvement in the uptime of email services to 99.9% compared to the previous situation with frequent downtime and an inconsistent quality of support.
"To support our business expansion we were considering the purchase of a new on-premises IT and telephony solution but found it quite overwhelming in terms of the capital investment, the support costs and the physical space required. The use of a Cloud-based solution has replaced all this with a simple monthly subscription cost and no complex equipment to support and house." - Jenni Sivertsen, Office Manager, The Preston Associates
company name
The Preston Associates
Industry
Coaching Consultancy
Country
United Kingdom
website:
http://www.theprestonassociates.com/