A new and improved IT environment for Age NI

Age NI needed a long-term IT partner. They wanted an experienced partner to help them build a robust, flexible, secure, compliant, and proactively managed, platform that could handle their various business applications.

Age NI wanted to plan and prepare for the future. They were also happy to consider either on-premise or cloud computing options. Any solution would have to be resourced in a cost effective way, a best fit for its employees, and the best enabler of its current operations.

The business had grown considerably over the last few years, so it was also time for a full IT review to think through Age NI’s business strategy in full and align it with technology. In practice, this meant looking carefully at all of Age NI’s employees and making sure that IT was enabling their roles as much as possible. In past years IT was not operating as efficiently as it could have.

Before deciding to work with BCN, what did the consideration phase look like?

There was a lot to consider, Age NI had such a nuanced range of needs and their process involved discussion with a number of IT providers. A key issue was around whether to go on-premise or to the cloud. BCN said it would be hard to say at this early stage. It could easily be a combination of both. BCN would need to start by discussing with all Age NI stakeholders. Other issues to consider were.

1. What would be the impact on users and the organisation as they acclimate to new technology?
2. As new technologies are introduced what training elements would need to be considered?
3. Does the IT provider understand the business model and is there synergy between the IT provider and Age NI?
4. How will the new provider affect users and Age NI as their team get used to new processes, technology, and a new working day.

All these questions and concerns were satisfied by the provision of proposals, meetings and references that demonstrated a clear understanding of their needs plus the market sector and evidence of the right processes in place for ensuring a smooth transition.

This was a large job with a certain amount of upheaval. Age NI’s core infrastructure and user interface would be undergoing a large change. This meant that the proposed transition process employed by BCN had to hit the right spot. This produced a considerable amount of deliberation and care to ensure all of Age NI’s needs were met. This also involved assuring users and managers that things would be phased in gradually and that changes would produce valuable benefits, despite there being a small upheaval.

BCN built a new and improved IT platform for Age NI

It consisted of an infrastructure refresh and the introduction of cloud services, offering highly resilient onsite server and networking services with near continuous backups, plus the addition of cloud-based Disaster Recovery all monitored 24/7 and tested regularly. It was implemented over the course of 3-6 months

What were the results?

1. Cost effectiveness via more measurable management of costs and improved efficiency between BCN and Age NI.
2. Improved operational resilience: more system uptime and improved business continuity.
3. Secure access facilitated anywhere from any device; Age NI had many employees working from home and on home devices.
4. Improved productivity and cost savings thanks to updated technology. This involved having the server estate at the correct performance and availability, refreshing the network cabling, and having onsite and offsite backup and disaster recovery.
5. Establishing a great working relationship with Age NI staff. This was facilitated by regular reviews and a transparent view of the partnership.