Kickstarting System Transformation: How Torus Modernised Document Management and Data Governance

Torus Group is one of the North West's largest affordable housing providers, managing over 40,000 homes. The group also includes HMS, an award-winning construction company and contractor operating across the region. Torus reinvests its profits to create genuine social impact, funding projects that improve lives, strengthen communities, and make places better.

Torus is committed to transforming the way that it delivers services to its customers and colleagues. Beginning their systems transformation journey was a major step. Choosing the right partner to implement a new document system and make the best use of the M365 platform was essential.

When Old Systems Block Progress

Torus’s main challenge was escaping from outdated, legacy systems that blocked their ability to modernise, automate, and work efficiently.

Torus was running multiple old, unmaintained platforms that were no longer being updated such as Documotive and Wisdom. This created operational fragility and made it impossible to evolve towards modern practices.

Their old system had no ability to support automation, forcing teams to rely on manual workarounds. The IT team at Torus couldn’t automate compliance processes, and people were building scripts just to keep things running, which limited productivity and increased workloads.

The on-premise legacy document management systems were causing scattered systems which led to duplicated data, inconsistent processes, and difficulty maintaining or scaling technology. Torus needed a single, cloud-based place to store and manage documents. Torus had over 1,000,000 documents to migrate, and none of the data had been properly cleansed beforehand. They also lacked data retention policies and needed a plan to reduce storage and clean up historical documents. This became a huge part of their transformation challenge.

Building a Foundation for Transformation

Torus wanted to modernise their operations from multiple outdated, disconnected legacy systems to a single, flexible, cloud-based platform that supports automation, integration, data retention, and long-term digital transformation.

Users were accustomed to outdated, clunky interfaces. Moving to Mosaic, TSG's Electronic Document and Record Management System, was a big change management challenge, with staff unsure how to navigate the new environment. The shift to a modern M365-based system needed cultural as well as technical change.

Torus is now serverless for document management and relies on M365 and SharePoint and has reduced dependency on outdated on-premises tools. Mosaic integrates well with both legacy and modern housing management systems, providing a future-proof foundation. There are now 1,400 Mosaic users out of 2,000 Torus employees.

Breaking Down Barriers to Modern Working

Increased productivity: Torus’s old setup prevented compliance process automation, integration with modern platforms, flexible working, and efficient field operations for housing teams. Moving to a modern M365 integrated system was essential to remove these roadblocks.

Data migration success: Over 1 million documents were successfully migrated.

Major productivity gains: Housing management teams are now more productive and can work efficiently in the field using Mosaic. Automation through Power Automate has saved one full-time employee in compliance.

Modernisation: Torus moved away from two legacy systems (Documotive and Wisdom) and consolidated their data into Mosaic.

Project Management & Partner Experience: Torus felt TSG delivered excellent project management, strong listening and responsiveness, effective governance and a proper end-of-project review. Fast turnaround on fixes and improvements, many added to the product roadmap quickly. 

TSG have been a fantastic partner in helping us kick‑start our systems transformation journey. Right from the beginning, they brought structure, clarity, and real expertise to the challenge of replacing our legacy document management systems. They quickly understood not just the technology, but the scale and complexity of Torus as an organisation, which gave us real confidence as we moved forward.

What really stood out was how collaborative and approachable they were. The team took the time to listen, understand our challenges, and work with us to refine our thinking. Whether it was solution design, technical guidance, project support, or training, they were consistently professional, responsive, and easy to work with. And when issues did come up, as they inevitably do in projects of this size TSG were quick to act and proactive in keeping everything on track.

Thanks to TSG’s support, we now have a solid foundation for the next stages of our systems transformation programme. Their involvement has genuinely made a difference, and I would confidently recommend TSG as a trusted, capable, and committed delivery partner.

I would also strongly recommend Mosaic as a document management solution for the social housing sector. It offers real flexibility for automation, supports stronger data governance through effective retention policies, and has helped us make far better use of the wider M365 platform. 

Rob Chapman, Business Applications Delivery Manager