Case Studies

They pride themselves on providing their clients with the highest standards of care and advice. Their experienced team of financial consultants are all fully UK qualified and knowledgeable on the issues that affect the lives of expatriates

Finding the Right Solution

Fraser Mackinlay has been running off an old server within their head office. They needed to find a solution which would provide them the flexibility to access their desktop applications, email and data from their 2 main offices, but also from different locations. This is especially true for their consultants who work from home and need access to the systems. A hosted desktop was the obvious choice as it would allow Fraser Mackinlay staff to work from anywhere, but allow them to collaborate is real time effectively.

Claire Huddleston is the Business Development Manager of FMDL (Part of the Fraser Mackinlay Group) says “We went out to the market place and spoke to a number of providers, but found Sagari to be the best choice for us. With their deep understanding of hosted services and incredible customer care, we knew we were in safe hands”.

Considerable Cost Savings and Added Value

Fraser Mackinlay investigated the costs currently being spent to manage the IT system which after collating everything over the year where substantial. They found with a hosted desktop solution they would be making a saving of around 50% for managing their current infrastructure which made it an easy choice to move with a hosted desktop platform.

Vastly Reduced Capital Expenditure Costs

With no requirements for servers on-site, Fraser Mackinlay removes the up-front costs of running and maintaining hardware on-site.

With a hosted desktop, the data, applications and information are running from the cloud, and not the local desktop. This meant we have vastly improved the return on investment of Fraser Mackinlay’s local desktops because the work has been transferred from being run locally.

Claire Huddleston says “Sagari have transformed the way we operate, making us far more efficient, also allowing us to provide services to practically anywhere in the world at any time and has brought the company into the 21st century.”

Collaboration and Scalability

Fraser Mackinlay is looking to expand the business into different countries so they compete into different areas and grow the company further. A hosted desktop makes it very easy to scale the system up or down depending on the requirements for the business because you only pay for what you use.

Being able to share documents and collaborate effectively with all relevant teams on the same projects in different location is a huge benefit for Fraser Mackinlay. Before moving to a hosted desktop, the staff had to email documents to each office, or back the data up onto a drive and then send to the relevant users.
The hosted platform allows Fraser Mackinlay to share any information to anyone in the world, changes to documents are seen in real-time, and multiple users can work on the same document sequentially.

The advantages of sharing data and group collaboration for Fraser Mackinlay has meant they can now grow their business effectively

Claire Huddleston summarised “Sagari have provided us with the tools to scale our business, and the flexibility to access our information from anywhere. We enjoy working with Sagari as they are a fantastic team who we have got to know very well. We look forward to building our business with them and having the peace of mind that they there are always at our side”.

Improved Performance

Understanding that the local desktop doesn’t have to run memory intensive applications, or perform processing hogging tasks, whilst storing gigabytes and gigabytes of data leads to massive increases in performance.

The local desktops resources are no longer being utilised, freeing the machine’s performance up immeasurably.

This allows your desktop to not only boot up quicker, but also run faster and work more effectively, because there is nothing hogging up the memory or tasks to perform, other than a connection to run the cloud.

Improve Functionality using Latest Email Platform

Fraser Mackinlay wanted to add improved functionality to their business so they could share calendars with their team, link their email to their mobile devices for on the move, share mailboxes when a user was away on holiday. Fraser Mackinlay where currently using an old POP based system which has limited functionality, especially for a growing business when communication is key
Offering a hosted email solution meant not only adding vast functions and features for their staff, but offering many offer benefits such as backup of their emails and disaster recovery.

Claire Huddleston  says: “Moving to a hosted mail platform was perfect for us as it added value to our business by improving, functionality, allowing my staff to share resources effectively. Our hosted email also integrated with our CRM to automate business processes.

They provide a flexible service that allows their clients to easily reach their appointed accountant and book-keeper so they can ask for advise and support when they require.

Time Accountants business thrives on its people - a pool of highly talented and enthusiastic individuals who deliver a broad and innovative range of services, but without compromising on delivering a genuinely director-led service. Technical excellence underpins how they deliver their services and their teams are dedicated to offering practical financial solutions.

Finding a Reliable and Stable Service Provider

Time Accountants came to us with the main purpose of resolving their highly unstable email system, which was out-of date, crashing regularly and losing emails to name a few.

Hannah Thatcher is the MD of Time Accounts says "We have had the same email system, which we had from when we started the business and we have outgrown it rapidly. Email is our main source of communicating between our customers and staff. Our book keepers are positioned all over the South East so we need a reliable email system for our team"

Understanding these needs made it the obvious choice to offer a hosted email solution. With our 99.9% up-time guarantee and leading stable platform meant they can have peace of mind.

Never Lose an Email Again

Time Accountants email system was extremely unstable and losing emails regularly which would be a massive issue for any business. Ensuring all emails are delivered to their recipients is essential for providing a professional service, and more importantly these days for compliance.

Implementing a Sagari hosted exchange email solution for Time Accountants, meant we could guarantee to deliver all correspondence to the correct recipients because of our leading hosted exchange platform. All of the emails are filtered by our leading anti-spam and anti-virus solution, before being passed through our vast transport hub (where emails are sent before being delivered to your mailbox).

As part of every hosted email solution we integrate a leading archiving system which means ever email ever sent or received is stored for your business forever. This provides search functions to retrieve any email and adhere to many compliancy regulations such as tamper control and audit trails.

Hannah Thatcher says: Receiving email archiving is a massive plus for us because we know we can look at historic emails with the fast and easy search facility provided. A lot of our communication with customers is done by email and phone, so being able to track back a conversation is fantastic"

Improve your Teams Efficiency

Running a large accountancy firms requires implicit organisation and communication, which Time Accountants know only too well. Being able to utilise a large array of features such as shared calendars, Blackberry and mobile device integration, shared contacts, email templates, alerts and reminders to name a few, gives your team the tools they need to become more efficient. Hannah Thatcher says: "Having access to all the features the Sagari email system provides has enhanced our business 10 fold, because we can now communicate and work more effectively, streamlining our operations"

Never too Much Trouble

Sagari strive to go above and beyond for any of our clients, whether you're big or small. It makes no difference to us. Most important to us is our level of care and support to your business, and more importantly your staff. We follow all best practice standards and always try to out perform support response levels for resolving all queries into our operations centre. Time Accountants team are a pleasure to work with, where we have built up a great relationship by understanding their business and taking the time to get to know them all. Hannah Thatcher says: "Sagari team are always professional and nothing is ever too much trouble. They always solve our queries in a fast and proficient manner, communicating with us at every step which is something that is usually overlooked by most IT companies. We love working with Sagari and can see us staying with them for the foreseeable future"

Steven John is the MD of Sagari; he says "Customer care is what I hold most important within Sagari, ensuring my teams are educated, and hold those same values; this is the lifeblood of our business. We aim to be more than just your IT partner, hoping to be a true extension of your business, taking vital interest in the well-being of each company we serve".

If you require specific resource or require technical expertise in any of the following, Cloud Computing services, Hosting Services including hosted desktops and hosted email, Networking, Infrastructure support, then please feel free to contact us directly, visit Sagari at www.sagari.co.uk/contact-us or please call us on 08443577282 so we can demonstrate why many companies choose us.

The Xfor Group was formed by former personnel of the armed forces and police, who employ the same ethics, skills, experience and protocol of that background to deliver a superior service, giving them a distinct competitive edge.

Finding the Right IT Partner

The Xfor group came to Sagari with a large number of objectives to fulfil, primarily to allow them to achieve faster growth, whilst vastly improving efficiency, with increased communication and flexibility.

Steve Gillespie is the MD of The Xfor Group says "We went out to the market place and spoke to a number of providers, but found Sagari to be the obvious choice for us. With their deep understanding of hosted services and incredible customer care, we knew we were in safe hands".

Easy Collaboration and Flexibility

With multiple offices across the UK and mobile work forces, The Xfor Group needed a solution which would provide collaboration and flexibility. We recommended a hosted desktop solution because it offered the centralisation of all their data applications and email, allowing access from anywhere around the world with an internet connection. Steve Gillespie says "Sagari have transformed the way we operate, making us far more efficient, also allowing us to provide services to practically anywhere in the world at any time."

Reliable communications

The importance of a reliable email system is critical for The Xfor group. With new people to be investigated on short notice, the vital information provided to the surveillance teams real-time are just some of the reasons; The Xfor Group required a stable and reliable email system.

Steve Gillespie says "We required a stable hosted email system to provide constant contact with our external investigators, with seamless integration to all of our mobile devices. We required the ability to keep a constant record of all emails, with industry leading tamper controls and backups".

All of our hosted email solutions come with a suite of applications including being on the latest Exchange 2010 platform, industry leading archiving, anti-spam and anti-virus, full BES (Blackberry) integration and mobile device integration with the very latest encryption.

Customer Care

Sagari's main objective is to offer the best level of customer care to our customers, the IT service is a given that we should be providing. Being able to offer The Xfor Group, the confidence that we are there to help them at every level is very important to us. Steve Gillespie says "Sagari are one of the most professional companies we have ever worked with, nothing is ever too much trouble, if there is ever a problem, they jump straight on and update the relevant people at each stage. We can get hold of them 24x7 which is critical for the operation of our business.

Peace of Mind

Steve Gillespie summarised "Sagari have provided us with the tools to scale our business, and the flexibility to access our information from anywhere. We love working with Sagari as they are a fantastic team who we have got to know very well. We look forward to building our business with them and having the peace of mind that they there are always at our side".

Extension of your Business

Steven John is the MD of Sagari; he says "Customer care is what I hold most important within Sagari, ensuring my teams are educated, and hold those same values; this is the lifeblood of our business. We aim to be more than just your IT partner, hoping to be a true extension of your business, taking vital interest in the well-being of each company we serve".

If you require specific resource or require technical expertise in any of the following, Cloud Computing services, Hosting Services including hosted desktops and hosted email, Networking, Infrastructure support, then please feel free to contact us directly, visit Sagari at www.sagari.co.uk/contact-us or please call us on 08443577282 so we can demonstrate why many companies choose us.

ERL consultants specialise in finding technical experts and managers in a variety of technology areas across the UK & Europe.

As their consultants only recruit for the Oil and Gas industry, they provide unparalleled expertise and service. They have placed candidates all over the world, and are constantly in contact with individuals who are either actively looking, or who have asked to be kept informed of suitable openings.

ERL was founded in September 2009 by David Wicks, and during the first financial year of recruiting, the company's turnover was in excess £1 million. With the contracts already in place, European Recruitment will bring in over £3 million during its second year in business as a minimum. ERL receives exceptional referrals their clients and candidates and thus has quickly become an approved member of The Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo): APSCo is the UK's leading professional recruitment industry body.

Scalable Solution

As ERL is a vastly expanding company, recruiting new staff, month on month. This required a solution which allowed EU Recruit to scale up and down with ease. David Wicks is the MD of EU Recruit, he says "Providing a scalable solution means I can adapt my business as and when I please, knowing I can grow rapidly and have new staff up and running within hours is critical".

Seamless Transition

Moving from one platform to another was a major concern for EU Recruit.. Being so reliant on their email meant if there was a problem it could cost them dearly.

We provided a step-by-step approach to David Wicks, so he was clear how we project plan and provision a company to our exchange hosted email platform. This demonstrated that every solution we implement is carefully planned, by completing an IT audit of the systems, and then analysing how best to approach the implementation, rather than a one plan fits all approach. This gave EU Recruit the confidence to move forward because we take each business as an individual case.

We provided training material to ensure the team understood how to access their email via Outlook and webmail, how to set-up their Blackberry, through to how to log a job with the Sagari support team. Our leading hosted Exchange email bolts into your favourite email clients such as Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird so there is little or no training required. The learning curve for EU Recruit staff was geared towards the improved functionality and features, rather than the day-to-day email use.

David Wicks say: "Sagari instantly removed my fears by addressing my concerns by demonstrating their migration process. The process was seamless which meant my business was not affected. The Sagari team know exactly what they are doing which give me great reassurance I have an IT partner I can rely on"

Performance

Being a recruitment company requires fast access to all of their critical information. Providing a powerful system to cope with the demands of a rapidly growing company was essential. A hosted desktop solution was the obvious choice over a physical server(s), because of the limitations an on-premise solution would create. A hosted desktop allows us to control resource such as memory, processing power, bandwidth etc. with ease. David Wicks says "Our hosted desktop solution is much faster to use than our local desktop. We are incredibly impressed with the speed of access to our information".

Disaster Recovery

As any company will know, it is not the hardware that is important, but the data that is running on it. EU Recruit knew the importance of this, and wanted to ensure that all of their data is backed up automatically everyday. A Sagari hosted platform means your email is backed up constantly and forever, allowing you to view historical data from the moment Sagari provision and host your services.

EU Recruit also wanted a backup system, backing up their data throughout the day, rather than scheduled to a back up solution every night. A Sagari hosted desktop means you are provided with CDP which is continuous data protection. What this does, is backs up your data as you make changes throughout the day in real-time, allowing EU Recruit staff to restore from different point of the day. David Wicks says "knowing our information is backed up constantly and replicated across multiple sites give me great peace of mind, also storing every email ever received, or sent is massive for us, because we use our email as a search facility, so giving our staff access to every email to search on helps us run the business more effectively, and the way we like to operate".

If you require specific resource or require technical expertise in any of the following, Cloud Computing services, Hosting Services including hosted desktops and hosted email, Networking, Infrastructure support, then please feel free to contact us directly, visit Sagari at www.sagari.co.uk/contact-us or please call us on 08443577282 so we can demonstrate why many companies choose us.

They received a lot of SPAM on a daily basis which meant it took a long time to go through their emails and slowed their network down.

They needed a Disaster Recovery System for their Email Exchange Mobile Blackberry Solution. Essence Consulting use Blackberry when on the road and needed a support company to support to manage these devices to ensure they wouldn't be without their critical tools such as email and apps.

They required remote and On-site support not only for their office base in The Docklands but for all the consultants out on the road.

How did Sagari resolve these IT Support problems?

We sat down with the Operation Director and Managing Director to find out more about their current concerns, budget, requirements and gathered key information to help us understand the best approach to resolve these problems.

We spoke with key staff, including the consultants to find out what problems they were having and what impact this was having on their job.

Having this information was essential but we always require finding out exactly what is going on with their current IT System. For this we provided a Free and comprehensive Network Audit where we analysed their network thoroughly.

This gave us all the tools to put together a step-by-step plan that would both deliver the solution they require for their budget but stage this in a way which would allow for a seamless transition.

Was Essence Consulting happy with our Solution?

Essence Consulting is still with us today and keeping us busy with all the new and exciting challenges. We work very well together and they see us as an extension to their business rather than their IT Partner. We look forward to helping Essence Consulting grow and to support them for many years to come

The desktops currently being used by the teachers and pupils where all out of warranty, old and slow. It was decided it would be more cost-effective to buy 35 workstations from one manufacturer, making it easier for maintenance and support by standardising the hardware. The Loxdale Centre did not have a server for file and print services so were subjected to keeping data on the local machines. This had many potential flaws such as security and backup of data.

Installing a server was an obvious choice not just from a security and data point of view but for networking, management and support.

Spam has always been an issue for Loxdale and was easily rectified by implementing Loxdale's email to run through our email Spam filtering system which practically eliminated their spam issues overnight. Additionally we put in an email failover system which meant if their primary email system failed, they would continue to receive their emails whilst we resolved the issue.

Sagari are now maintaining Loxdale's IT Network on a fixed monthly managed support plan to alleviate anymore stress with regards to their IT Support so they can get on with their business knowing that they have the support and expertise at hand. We will be looking at their cabling infrastructure next as it is a very old building and the current cabling was installed a long time ago. When we are happy that the entire infrastructure is working to an optimum level we will implement a Disaster Recovery Plan.

From our talks with key staff and the Operations Director we had our budgets and constraints we could work to. This allowed us to procure and implement an on-site solution which would ensure in a minor disaster we could restore their server and key workstations within the hour.

The off-site solution we put in place meant in a major disaster we could easily bring down the data from one of the vaults to complete a full restore of their Server and key workstations within 3 hours ensuring Stratum Five would be operational again.

Stratum Five have 3 hosted servers which are client facing servers that have no current support or maintenance in place. This flagged up many problems because of the importance of these servers running 24/7 365 and the lack of access to these servers directly if a problem occurs.

We spoke directly with their hosting companies to put in a failover solution which would switch over instantly in the event of a disaster so their clients would never know there was a problem. This would keep Stratum Five customers happy and would give Stratum Five's current suppliers the time to resolve any issues

Sagari are now looking after Stratum Five's backup and DR on a monthly fixed price plan and are looking to manage their servers and workstations in the near future.