Helping our customers take on new technology

It’s interesting to be involved with something in the business where I not only get to speak to different people at TSG – from sales to project management – but I’m lucky enough to speak with our customers, who are delighted with the IT solutions we’ve deployed for them.

Writing case studies has been part of my role pretty much since I joined TSG (and I’ve been here long enough to have seen the release of the first iPhone!) so as you’d imagine I’ve written a lot.

One of the fantastic things I’ve learned over the years is how diverse our customer base is. I’ve worked with palaces, football clubs, train companies, charities, golf clubs, airports, housing associations, manufacturers, distributors, schools and academies… to name but a few!

So how can one IT business really solve all the IT challenges that these customers face?

In a nutshell – total expertise.

We have experts in every product and service we offer, from Office 365 to telephony, and IT security to business intelligence.

What I discover through working on each case study is our unique ability to tailor, and often adapt, a solution from our broad product stack, to suit the exact requirements of the customer. We help customers with IT challenges they face, by understanding their business and what they are trying to achieve, or simply encourage a transition to more modern technologies to aid business growth.

I think Chris Scott, Data & Insight Manager at Newcastle United Football Club, sums up the way TSG work with customers perfectly:

“TSG is an expert in both technology and how to get the most out of that technology, and we worked together to scope a fantastic Qlik Sense project. It was a definite partnership, with a shared goal to create and manage a robust and flexible data management system.
I can’t praise the TSG team enough. It seems a bit strange to say this, but one of the benefits for me was the fact that TSG is ‘normal’. They didn’t try to bamboozle me with jargon or try to sell me anything. They genuinely wanted to help find the right solution for the Club.”

What we don’t do is shoehorn a solution into a business hoping that it will somewhat improve its processes and objectives.

Take TCAM Asset Management for example, one of the latest customers I’ve had the pleasure of working with to create a case study.

A start-up business from a management buy-out, TCAM needed highly available, cutting-edge technology. The company was in a unique position whereby it had no legacy software or infrastructure, so could take advantage of latest technologies to give it a real competitive edge.

Based on this we recommended IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) which, when you read how it works, is the perfect cloud solution for TCAM and will undoubtedly help the business innovate and adapt as it grows.

Karam’s recent blog Think like a start-up, act like an enterprise really sums up the journey businesses take to the cloud, whether they’re start-ups or enterprise-level and have legacy solutions in place to take into consideration.

We also did some really clever stuff with Office 365 and SharePoint for TCAM. The more I hear about these products in particular I understand how much they can do to improve business processes. For TCAM we used SharePoint to create a system where documents and client data are automatically linked with the added benefit of automated security permissions if required. A relatively simple but very time consuming task if completed manually!

But that’s only scratching the surface with the possibilities SharePoint can offer organisations. In other projects we have:

• Created workflow systems to enable businesses to review documents across departments with the facility to approve, revise and automate

• Introduced document control systems with search and tagging functionality to facilitate ISO accreditation

• Helped significantly reduce business training days by creating a smart knowledge management system

I could go on, but I think you get the gist… imagine how easily all of these solutions could be adapted to help businesses in other ways – on their journey to GDPR compliance for example?

A hot topic I hear about on a daily basis within the business and in the news (and quite often forms part of our case studies) is IT security.

Did you know that 54% of businesses in the UK have experienced a Ransomware attack, with a staggering 37% paying the ransom? [Source: The Guardian]

Scary stuff.

Our customers are getting more and more in tune with ensuring their data and the network it sits on is as secure as possible. If not, the consequences can be catastrophic!

Cassiltoun Housing Association is a perfect example of an organisation that takes security seriously and is kept updated with latest technologies from TSG.

The charity-based organisation wanted to secure its system beyond anti-virus and saw the value in Intercept X – a new generation of Ransomware protection that shields your business from any Ransomware attack.

The best thing about writing the case study for Cassiltoun was that only two weeks later the organisation could really REALLY see the value of its investment, with Intercept X identifying and disabling an attack on its network.

To speak with customers like Gamal Haddou at Cassiltoun and hear that TSG and Intercept X “saved us from significant disruption and loss” just makes the day job better, and illustrates how effective TSG is, whether it’s to provide a complete end-to-end IT service or just support the existing IT department.

This is something we do for Ian Macleod Distillers

It gives the team at the Distillers the support they need and allows them the freedom to undertake their day-to-day tasks without being distracted by other issues or projects around the business.

You just need read a few of our case studies to understand there’s no challenge too tough for us.