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After a long time debating whether moving to the cloud was the right step for Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce, the pandemic in 2020 and the shift to working from home showed that they needed a more flexible IT system and working with Netmetix was the way forward.
The Chamber had been talking about moving to the cloud for at least 18 months before the pandemic. It would be fair to say that the team were nervous about moving away from having servers on-site, and the ‘physical’ fix if something went wrong. But also how the Cloud would work alongside existing processes and workstreams.
When 2020 hit, the employees of the Chamber all moved to working from home and quickly changed to hosting online events, workshops and 1:1 meetings with businesses. This certainly fast-tracked and confirmed the Chamber’s thinking; that they needed a more up to date, flexible network to match their new ways of working. Six months of working remotely gave them the confidence, and clarity about what kind of IT support infrastructure was necessary, and what needed upgrading.
As a valued strategic partner of the Chamber, Netmetix had been advising and supporting the Chamber for some time regarding the Cloud. So when it became apparent that this was the way forward the Board signed off on the investment and they got to work.
After initial high-level conversations, Paul brought the rest of the Netmetix team on board to get into the detail. Getting under the skin of what the Chamber really needed and then reviewing what they had already and how this could be migrated. As the Chamber does not have a specific IT director the project was led by a Project Team of Senior Managers, enabling a collaborative approach, taking differing viewpoints and understanding how each team used the network and also how the new network would be implemented into the company.
Once this information had been gathered and the Netmetix Team had got into the Chamber’s current set-up and worked closely with their support organisation they could start to migrate the Chamber to the Cloud.
Four months on, Netmetix have now completed the migration of the Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce’s on-premise servers and systems to Microsoft Azure and Keely Hancox, Operations Manager at the Chamber, could not be happier!
“Working with Netmetix, and the process of migrating to the cloud all felt painless. Our new, post-pandemic, hybrid way of working and the cloud makes everything much easier.” Keely Hancox -
Although the Chamber are slowly moving back into the office using a ‘hybrid’ working model, they can already see the benefits and efficiencies of using Microsoft Azure. Netmetix highlighted the need for the change when they looked at the hardware they were previously using and found numerous old servers that were turned on but no longer doing anything useful. Switching these off and moving to Microsoft Azure servers instantly meant that they would be saving money on electricity and get space back in their server room.
Netmetix’s Technical Director, Greig Schofield and Cloud Specialist, Kobe Mante worked closely with all the team ensuring there was as little disruption and downtime as possible, so the Chamber could still work without interruptions. They also kept in regular contact with Keely Hancox and answered questions clearly and honestly, putting her mind at ease.
Netmetix also brokered and managed the buying of new hardware for the Chamber and worked with their incumbent support team to transition to Netmetix support desk without any issues. They have also installed a new Wi-Fi system into the office, which has improved their connection quality and availability immeasurably. The Chamber was unsure that this was needed at the start of the project, but after bedding in their ‘hybrid’ way of working and discussing options with Netmetix, this was seen as a necessary investment that would strengthen the employee’s ability to work flexibly around the office.
“Working with Netmetix has been great. Throughout the project, they have listened to us, the customer, and been clear and honest about what they could and could not do. They have scenario planned with us and nurtured us, making us feel comfortable and trust in what they were doing.”
“I was nervous about the integration of all our finance software, as if this went wrong, we’d be really stuck, but our Finance manager was happy with the process and no problems occurred, which was great.
“Although this was a very technical project, Greig, Kobe and Paul [Blore, Managing Director] have held our hands through it and never confused us with technical jargon. They are very people orientated and the communication has been brilliant throughout.” Keely Hancox – CW Chamber of Commerce -