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.

 

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 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.”