Waterflow Plc
The Waterflow Group Plc is one of the UK’s leading providers of sewer and drainage maintenance services. This incorporates inspection, repair, and renovation works as well as complete civil engineering projects.
Working primarily with water utility companies, public transport providers and local council authorities, the Waterflow Group employ over 200 staff who help provide a spectrum of services in the
sewer and drainage arena. This ranges from emergency maintenance contracts to all encompassing civil engineering works and building maintenance works. The likes of Tube Lines, Network Rail, British
Airways Authority and Thames Water are a small selection of Waterflows recent contract wins.
The continued growth in these high profile, large scale environments, along with the dispersed geographical nature of the work, led Waterflow management to rethink their IT strategy. It was identified that an external IT resource would be required to provide consultancy and complimentary services to help sustain and drive the company growth.
Waterflow invited TSS to discuss their situation and aspirations and put forward recommendations for the IT network. TSS identified that there were three principle areas that needed addressing. Firstly, the network should be upgraded to provide a scalable infrastructure to support the existing 75 users with the expectation that this figure would double over 3 years; secondly, a reliable and secure remote access solution should be rolled out in order to centralise the IT topology and support the satellite offices around the UK; thirdly, a proactive and reactive support
contract should be implemented which adhered to a strict Service Level Agreement (SLA) and involved TSS in the IT strategy and decision making process.
TSS, having performed in depth analysis of the network and Waterflows business objectives, produced an IT strategy document. This provided a detailed roadmap of the short, mid and long term plans for the Waterflow network which would be implemented over an agreed timeline.
The network was upgraded using market leading HP Proliant™ fileservers operating Microsoft Windows 2003 Server™. Exchange 2003 Server™ provided the core messaging and collaboration application solution. Various proprietary applications were integrated into the infrastructure providing accounting and CRM solutions.
Network security was increased using Cisco™ hardware in conjunction with Softscan™ anti-virus, anti-spam and web security engines which provided enterprise class levels of firewall, email and web filtering services along with highly detailed reporting abilities.
The Waterflow IT network was centralised with all services being provided from their Colnbrook headquarters. This was facilitated using Citrix Access Essentials™ to provide a fast, secure and reliable remote access solution for the four satellite offices throughout the UK plus the home and remote users. This powerful, yet economic, solution enabled the remote sites and users to access corporate applications, at LAN speeds, without the necessity to upgrade either bandwidth or desktop hardware and software.
The final piece of the jigsaw was to put in place a comprehensive service and support contract. This compliments inhouse resource and provides server software and hardware support, 2nd and 3rd
line desktop support, and IT consultancy and strategy. The contract adheres to a specific SLA ensuring business continuity.
we require.”
The service is very proactive with daily monitoring of the network. This enables the majority of network issues to be resolved before they impact users. All Microsoft service packs and patches are
updated automatically to ensure the network is up to date and secure.
IT strategy and consultancy is an integral part of the service that TSS provide to Waterflow. Regular meetings are held with Waterflow management to ensure the IT strategy correlates with the organisational strategy. This ongoing service is an invaluable part of the outsourced IT function. It ensures that the IT environment is managed as it grows which
guarantees that the network performance, security, functionality and total cost of ownership are all optimised.
Why outsource your IT function?
The business environment is evolving. We’re in a world where technology moves at a lightning pace providing ever more complex and diverse business solutions. This offers the possibility of considerable competitive advantage to those who embrace it. The intelligent use of IT will help you drive down costs and improve business efficiency.
The challenge that businesses face is that they need to employ the perfect IT management and technological skillsets to achieve this competitive advantage. These skillsets are in short supply, can be difficult to identify and come at a high cost.
An outsourced IT solution allows you to leverage the IT management and technological skillsets that we have built over several years. We have deployed this model many times over allowing us to seamlessly integrate with your organisation at both strategical and operational levels.
TSS work with a modular system. This allows you to choose the service we provide thus enabling your perfect outsourced IT scenario to become reality. This incorporates the management and support of server and desktop environment, network performance monitoring, asset management, IT strategy, account management, disaster recovery, procurement, installation and configuration.
Benefits at a glance
- Access to a skilled team of IT consultants
and engineers - Service Level Agreements for server and
desktop support - Managed server and desktop environment
- Maximised return from IT investment
- Proactive network performance monitoring
- Formulation of IT strategy
- Improved efficiency and security of network operations and resources
- Single point of contact for the vast majority of IT needs
- Fixed costs for easier budgeting
- Procurement of products and services from approved partner
- Concentrate on your core business activities
- Reduction in staffing costs and associated management overheads
For further information on Waterflow Group Plc please visit their website at www.waterflow.co.uk
