Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce has offices across the county in Boston, Gainsborough, Grantham, Lincoln and Sleaford. It exists to bring together members from the business and wider community for the purpose of representing members at local, regional and national level on matters concerning trade, commerce, industry and lobbying.
SCS has been working with the Lincolnshire Chamber since 2006. After having completed a series of IT reviews across the key countywide sites, SCS was appointed to re-shape its IT infrastructure and help the Chamber regain control of its IT assets.Fast Facts:
Company Name: Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce
Webiste Address: http://www.lincs-chamber.co.uk/
Industry Sector: Not for Profit
Business Need: Reduce costs, improve productivity
Solutions Provided: Technology refresh, remote monitoring, IT support & maintenance
Prior to 2006 the Chamber had offset its lack of internal IT expertise by opting for a fully outsourced IT operation. However, with its PCs remaining on-site and its servers and applications housed at a third party data centre, the anticipated pain-free approach to IT support had not materialised.
Simon Beardsley, Chief Executive at Lincolnshire Chamber takes up the story. "Our preceding IT solution had been designed to resolve the headache of in-house IT management. However, as time passed, being unable to make simple adds, moves and changes, without involving a third party was proving to be painstakingly slow and highly inefficient.
"With the majority of networked users in the Lincoln office, a cluster of PC users in Sleaford and Boston, and an increasingly busy diary, the inability to share centralised data between the county offices and home was becoming a growing concern. Simon continues, "We felt increasingly out of control - we couldn't even affect our own data policies. In a world where IT is capable of making the working day more productive, our IT was effectively hampering our efforts to work smarter."
Against this background, the Chamber sought to review its entire IT strategy and deploy a new solution. Simon recounts, "SCS had been recommended to us by a personal contact and their renowned professionalism and consultative approach saw them progress through the first round of a rigorous tender process. What got them past the finishing post, however, was their highly personal and responsive service and a clear and demonstrable expertise in IT support provision."
With the project plan approved, the Chamber commenced a major IT overhaul to bring their infrastructure back in-house. After a period of scoping the optimum solution, SCS installed a small business server and terminal services server at Lincoln, plus the routers, firewalls PCs and associated software in the Lincoln, Sleaford and Boston sites. In combination, the solution supports Exchange, Windows, SQL and ISA and provides secure remote access to core applications for authorised staff, whether working from home, or from one of the regional sites. In line with the Chamber's requirements to reduce costs and increase internal control of their infrastructure, SCS also installed remote monitoring software on the 2 servers at Lincoln.
Simon articulates the benefits; "The remote monitoring provides us with complete peace of mind and gives a great deal of insight into how our IT is performing. In addition to monitoring the server performance and highlighting any hardware or service failures, such as email glitches or internet connectivity, it also checks that our backup routines have been performed correctly; keeping our data protected."
"By proactively alerting us when internet connectivity is down, or when a server is getting congested and failover is a risk, the software has enabled us to remedy problems quickly and easily. We've reduced the need for on-site maintenance and costs have fallen as a result. In terms of service, any downtime can be planned for at a time when it can be most easily accommodated. As we develop, the insight gained will also help us to plan and budget for future capacity requirements with confidence."
In combination, the project, support and remote monitoring have transformed the way that the Chamber operates and has made it a more effective and efficient organisation.
Simon concludes, "Changing and expanding your whole data infrastructure presents a major risk for any size of business. The understanding, support and professionalism SCS have exhibited throughout the process have exceeded all expectations. We now possess a responsive, scalable and efficient IT infrastructure, capable of supporting our changing needs and improving the services we are able to deliver to the local business community.
