Trinity was a family run business providing independent
financial advice which was recently became Brooks Moores &
Waren . The company specialised in wealth
management and offers advice on investment portfolios, tax
planning, tax mitigation, retirement planning and financial
security.
The Challenge
Prior to the implementation of the Hosted Services solution,
Trinity was relying on a POP3 system for sending and receiving
emails. However, running a business on a single dial-up email
account was almost impossible. It was slow and
unreliable and affected productivity levels. In addition, there was
no virus protection.
In winter 2001 Trinity was hit with a virus
which erased all client records. As a result, an independent IT
consultant was employed to clear the virus and obtain three months
worth of back-up information. This costly two-week retrieval
period, resulted in an adverse effect on customer service
levels.
In a bid to provide improved customer communications, Trinity
invested £15,000 in a dedicated Microsoft Exchange
server with Internet access via dial up ISDN. The robust solution
offered instant and reliable access and delivery of email.
Jeff Moores, a director at Trinity Financial commented: “This
new system was supposed to solve our business communication
problems and enable us to concentrate on our core business –
providing financial advice. However, I did not envisage
just how much time and effort it would take to
manage the infrastructure.
“For instance, software upgrades, virus checks and information
had to be backed up regularly. As we did not have the time and
expertise to handle these maintenance procedures, our independent
consultant undertook this task. It soon became clear that managing
this infrastructure was costing us more in time and
money than we had budgeted for.”
In addition, this technology didn’t facilitate mobile
working. As a result, employees had to call the office for
telephone and email messages when working off-site.
Jeff Moores continued: “Being responsive is key to
success but, when most of your time is spent out of the
office it is very difficult to handle customer communications
promptly. So we turned to Hosted Services to help us to address
this problem and eradicate any dead-time.”
The Solution
The implementation of a hosted Microsoft Exchange solution for
Trinity’s London office has enabled executives to send and receive
emails whilst on the move using HP iPAQs and O2 XDA devices. This
means that clients benefit from a flexible and responsive customer
service. From a management point of view, productivity
levels are up as employees can work anytime and from any
location.
The ability to work from the office and at home is facilitated
by an ‘always on’ broadband Internet connection using cable modem
technology - supplied by Telewest Business. This technology
provides a connection that is up to 10 times faster than the
previous service. As a result, accessing and transmitting
information is instant and uninterrupted. The hosted system
was installed in under a day by Cobweb
Solutions and Trinity did not experience any interruptions to
its email service during this implementation period.
Jeff Moores concluded: “By outsourcing our communications to
Cobweb, we no longer have to deal with the daily
headaches of running an email service. In fact, we don’t
have to spend a small fortune on an IT consultant as Cobweb
manages everything. This includes automatically upgrading the
software, running the virus scans and providing back up services –
all for a monthly cost of £15.00 per user.
“Working in a mobile office environment has enabled us to work
efficiently, keep in touch with customers and offer them an
unbeatable service. Thanks to Cobweb Solutions, daily email
downtime is a problem of the past. This means that I can
focus on running my business, confident that Hosted Services has my
communication needs under control.”