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Where people and homes come first |
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Keeping pace |
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Losing agility |
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Making a choice |
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An elegant alternative |
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Thin client and IT operations |
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Enter Insite |
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Insite-ful |
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The bottom line |
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The last word |
Where people and homes come first
Moat Housing Group is one of the UK's largest housing associations, providing high quality homes and services to people who need help to live independently.
Today, Moat Housing owns around 11,500 homes and is developing 900 more every year. This wide portfolio, and the specialist needs of its customers, means that the association currently employs over 400 staff to operate an effective service. In common with all not-for-profit organisations, Moat Housing has to be very careful to minimise their costs.
Keeping pace
The Moat Housing executive has always seen the value of technology as a means of driving efficiency across its 32 locations. Judicious use of the web and email has enabled Moat to move fast and deliver exemplary customer service.
Unfortunately, as the IT industry evolves, technologies that were cutting edge a couple of years ago quickly become bottlenecks. In common with many organisations at the leading edge, Moat Housing had chosen to build their networks using software from Novell and their email system using the Lotus product, cc:Mail.
Lotus stopped development of cc:Mail several years ago to encourage users onto their newer alternative, Lotus Domino. Domino is far more than just a mail system, and implementing the complete package was not relevant to Moat Housing. Matters became more pressing as the demands on the cc:Mail system continued to grow.
Losing agility
As a housing association, Moat Housing Group constantly arranges site and customer visits for surveyors and housing officers. They established regional call centres to provide better customer service, but these were held back by the technology. Like other email systems, cc:Mail provides tools to make scheduling easy, but unfortunately, it could only schedule the staff based in a single location. Those in different offices and mobile workers could not be included. Booking had become a mix of automated services, phone messages and voicemails, and the Moat IT Management had identified that these issues needed addressing quickly.
Making a choice
Barry Foster is IT Manager at Moat Housing. "Once we had decided to upgrade our email system, we quickly narrowed our choices down to one of three systems, these being Lotus Domino, Novell GroupWise and Microsoft Exchange. In the end, it came down to market acceptance and user preference. Many of our staff already use Microsoft software at home so we knew it would be a popular choice for them too. Unlike cc:Mail, the Microsoft option would allow us to build a single, central email database. We felt good about that - it would mean easy management, greater ability for global access, and simplified controlled backups."
Foster's team evaluated the implications of the new technology and realised that there was a powerful downside to a centralised mail system - more network traffic. This raised serious bandwidth concerns to his remote sites.
Foster again: "Early on, we identified that the Exchange solution with Outlook on every workstation would demand high bandwidth and would be a problem for our remote locations. We have leased lines to our 6 main sites and dial-up connections to the 25 smaller locations. We really didn't want to face expensive leased line upgrades, but the alternative meant worse performance than the existing cc:Mail service and we knew this would be unacceptable to the business."
An elegant alternative
The IT operation at Moat Housing Group has always sought not just short term fixes, but long term designs that can keep administration low and service quality high. As such, Foster's team already had some experience with thin client technology. "We were already using thin client to deliver applications to a handful of remote users so we knew the advantages it could offer. Thin client uses a very light protocol so we reasoned that if we could deliver the Outlook application to every desktop from the head office, we would take away the whole network problem"
But there is another huge benefit to a thin client implementation: staff would in future be able to log in to their system wherever they are through a secure internet connection. Suddenly, a whole new level of working flexibility coupled with broadband connectivity could be introduced.
Thin client and IT operations
Thin client solved the networking problem, but there was a lot more to be gained. By delivering applications directly from centralised servers:
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Desktops no longer need replacing every time new versions of desktop software emerge |
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Network demands stay consistent and manageable |
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Application upgrades and rollouts will become incredibly easy |
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Backups and disaster recovery are faster, cheaper and easier to implement |
Foster again: "We had already identified that this new project would be a catalyst for a huge improvement to our infrastructure. The next challenge was to find the right skills to help make it happen"
Enter Insite
Insite is a consulting company that focuses specifically on thin client. With one of the largest teams in the country and a decade of experience, they have an exemplary track record - they have never gone over budget and never missed a deadline. Thin client is a great match for email rollouts and the Insite team has built impressive credentials in all the main email and messaging technologies.
"We originally went to Insite because of their specific experience with large scale migrations from cc:Mail to Exchange. We approached a lot of vendors but found only three that had the depth of relevant experience. We briefed each in turn and invited them to tender for our business. Insite stood out because of their ability to listen and understand, and this was proven as their proposal demonstrated that they clearly understood our environment."
"Their experience was evident from the off as they consistently set realistic timescales and shared our views of flexibility for this sort of project. And lastly they're a friendly bunch, which makes doing business that much easier."
Insite-ful
Most technology services companies guard their skills jealously - the thought of sharing skills and knowledge with clients makes a lot of service delivery managers nervous. Insite's approach was different. Stephen Wilkes is Insite's Chief Technology Officer: "We have always taken the view that the more we can teach our clients, the more successful they are likely to be and that, in turn, means more opportunity for us in the future."
Insite worked alongside the Moat IT team to keep the project on track whilst transferring new skills to the team.
The bottom line
Moat Housing went into the migration because of pressures around capacity and the lack of future for cc:Mail. By being imaginative and forward thinking, they turned the problem into an opportunity to position themselves for the future. Now they have an environment that means:
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Diaries can now be accessed and meetings scheduled across the organisation with the press of a key improving efficiency, staff satisfaction and customer service |
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Staff can work more flexibly rather than being tied to a single location. Thin client technology allows them to log on wherever they are rather than return to the office after every call. Travel costs drop, efficiency climbs and staff spend less time in traffic. |
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Richer services are available to remote sites at a cheaper cost. |
At the same time, the system is:
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More efficient to run than before - with centralised support and operation |
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More scalable - critical as the government agencies with which Moat engages daily continue to drive e-Government and electronic communication initiatives |
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More resilient - with centralised data management and control |
Working with Insite, the Moat Housing Group team are achieving all of this with no down-time and with minimal disruption to their users and customers.
The last word
Barry Foster sums up: "We have been delighted with Insite's level of knowledge and skill. We are very focused on business continuity and service levels and it has been great to see that they exercise the same level of realism and care as our own people. Our trust levels are high because the Insite guys always do exactly what they say they are going to do. Would I recommend them? No question."
To find out more, call 01892 686000, visit www.insite-europe.co.uk or email James Barden at jamesb@insite-europe.co.uk
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