Challenge
The Sothertons team are not always office based and need to be able to access client files, taxation information, and tools whenever and where ever they are. With a mission to significantly grow their business, increase their service offerings and maintain local and international compliance standards, a highly available and secure IT infrastructure was required. Interactive developed a solution that has met these needs and taken what was considered a business limitation and turned it into a business enabler. “To our clients, we are much more than accountants, we are their business advisors, their trusted partners and confidantes,” said Peter Pryn, Director. “We work with them on day-to-day needs as well as forward planning from where they are today, to where they’d like to be tomorrow. To take them on this journey, we needed to have our data, client records and reports ready at hand – and to make that possible we needed the best technology.
Solution
Choosing to work with a local business that would ensure that all digital assets would be maintained onshore was an important part of the partner selection process. Sothertons needed a high level of assurance and security. “Protecting our customer’s data is our number one priority,” said Mr Pryn. “Our in-house IT environment with legacy infrastructure had its limitations. Now not only do we have improved access to our own information we have a fail-safe system that gives us peace of mind that our client data will not be compromised” Mr Pryn said. Interactive transferred Sothertons data from a single head office location to its own data centre, migrating and upgrading Sothertons’ infrastructure with reinforced power, backup, security and speed to create a smooth transition. The Directors agreed, the best part of this process was that it was completely seamless and staff were amazed they had transitioned all IT hardware without any downtime. The Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solution provided by Interactive gave Sothertons the level of compliance required to operate at a global level. “It was important that as we grew as a business, our IT was working with us, not creating obstacles. Previously, as our demand for data storage grew we were continuously applying – short term fixes like buying more storage capacity – when really the issue was much bigger than that. And, we were running out of room to house the extra capacity. Interactive showed an understanding of our business and created a pathway for us to upgrade our aged IT without impacting our business potential” Mr Pryn said. Interactive built a scalable hosted and fully redundant platform within an Enterprise data centre environment – monitored and managed 24/7 by expert support. “Digital documentation is a large part of what we do. Clients have archived record requirements that we must keep in check to ensure we’re effectively able to pull out this information as and when the client asks for it” said Mr Pryn. Sothertons infrastructure now has the flexibility to change and adapt to company needs. By outsourcing this function, there is no longer a need to continue investing in Capex, creating a cost effective solution in the long run.
"It is as important for us to have a strong relationship with our IT service provider as it is for us to personally engage with our clients. We see Interactive as a business partner, able to deliver a robust solution with a high touch level of service. When we looked after our own infrastructure, we got to appreciate first hand just how business critical the IT function is. When you’re in the trenches at 3am and there’s been a glitch in the system, we know Interactive will be on the issue then and there, giving us the confidence in the resilience and availability of our solution around the clock."
