MODERNISING A LOGISTICS FIRM WITH OVER 125 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE
Reliable and Secure IT as the Foundation for Business Growth
Considering the organisation’s complex, multi-site structure and its customers’ strict data protection requirements, Williams Shipping needs robust IT and Cyber Security frameworks to scale in line with growth plans.
So, when it became apparent that the company’s existing on-premise solution was limiting company growth, its leadership team asked: how can we modernise our IT to provide an efficient workplace for our distributed employees?
The Challenge
Williams Shipping had significant growth plans, but its on-premises IT infrastructure was holding it back.
The company was looking to expand from its five locations, increasing the user count and workload on the already overburdened IT system, based around a single server set up in the head office.
The server was at capacity. Teams couldn’t grow. New users were unable to connect to their required applications and data while existing staff were enduring slow loading times and a poor user experience, limiting their performance.
With no fault tolerance, the IT infrastructure represented a significant business continuity risk. End user flexibility was limited with many users only having a thin client on their desks.
So, due to our experience updating legacy systems and processes into future-proofed, fully scalable, secure IT environments, Williams Shipping approached TMT.
The Solution
With TMT’s cyclical ‘Strategy, Transformation and Continual Review’ approach, we got to work — beginning with a comprehensive IT Strategy Review.
We provided the company with a ready-to-use IT roadmap detailing how to modernise its struggling IT infrastructure to be ready for expansion. This roadmap included an easy-to-understand project plan, timescales, and required budgets.
With Williams Shipping’s agreement, our cloud engineers deployed Azure’s scalable and secure services as the backbone for Williams Shipping’s new server environment, migrating business-critical systems, including Williams Shipping’s SAP instance.
Security was at the heart of developing and deploying the new IT infrastructure. We created a new security baseline for the business by:
- Protecting all Office 365-hosted mailboxes with mail filtering.
- Defending Williams Shipping devices using managed anti-virus.
- Securing the estate with multi-factor authentication.
- Replacing legacy hardware with vendor-supported and regularly patched laptops.
- Securing the office connectivity with secure segregated Wi-Fi for internal and guest use.
- Ensuring business continuity with comprehensive Disaster Recovery testing of the Azure-hosted critical applications.
The Outcome
Williams Shipping is expanding to new sites and growing its business on a secure and scalable IT foundation.
From having five sites struggling with slow loading times and frequent IT issues, the organisation now operates eight bases with rapid and reliable access to cloud-hosted data and applications.
With access to Office 365 applications, employees have said goodbye to inefficient, inflexible fixed workstations and have everything they need to work remotely. Plus, as an itBusinessCare Advanced customer, Williams Shipping’s personnel can get rapid helpdesk advice and onsite engineering support whenever needed.
We’re excited to continue working alongside Williams Shipping, helping the team maintain the best-in-class IT infrastructure for their employees. Moving forward, we’ll work closely with them to maintain their Cyber Essentials certification and work towards the ISO27001 qualification.
