SUMMARY
CLIENT
Alan Quine Ltd is an independent car accessory company that has built its reputation for customer satisfaction and quality of service over the last 30 years.
PROJECT
Despite Alan Quine's development as a company, their IT infrastructure didn't see much growth. They were running Windows Server 2008, which was extremely outdated and was severely limiting the way they wanted their business to grow.
SOLUTION
Our teams upgraded both Alan Quine’s Workstations and Server environment to Microsoft Server 2019. This helped to provide advanced threat protection and full of their IT infrastructure.
Introduction
Established in 1983, Alan Quine Ltd has built its reputation for customer satisfaction and quality of service for over 30 years. They have come a long way since 1983, as they have now been able to join forces with over 250 other independent motor stores nationwide to become one to become one of the UK’s largest motor part buying groups called A1 Motor Stores. Their enthusiasm, passion and experience for motoring has allowed them to help customers with all their car care needs at the most competitive prices.
Challenge
Despite Alan Quine's development as a company, their IT infrastructure didn't see much growth. They were running Windows Server 2008, which was extremely outdated and had reached its 'End of life' period. When a product reaches the end of its lifecycle, Microsoft will discontinue all technical support and security updates for that product. Alan Quine was having difficulty protecting their important data as well as keeping up with the ever-changing cybersecurity threats due to a lack of security updates.
They also lacked a backup solution, so once a file was lost, it was gone forever. The lack of backup solution meant that they had no way of recovering their data if the worst was to happen. This was extremely detrimental to their business because it reduced their ability to manage their stock data, customer data, and supplier data. Upon deeper inspection into their IT infrastructure, our team discovered failed hard drives. This meant there was no active monitoring and an increase in the number of corrupted important files. These failed hard drives could lead to things unexpectedly going wrong, resulting in outages and major issues with their network, systems, and applications.
Solution
Our teams upgraded both Alan Quine’s Workstations and Server environment. We implemented an active directory which allowed the computers to have a direct link to a server allowing us to push group policies out for network shares/printers etc. The new server was installed with Microsoft Server 2019 which allowed them to have improvement in their security by providing advanced threat protection and allowing them to receive the most recent Microsoft updates.
The new Server allowed Alan Quines AutoPart MAM system, which is a versatile business management software that allows them to take control of their sales, inventory management, accounting, and reporting processes to help them grow and expand, to get upgraded to the latest version. To help them get more out of their Windows Server, we collaborated with MAM to install and migrate their SQL database, ensuring a smooth migration and ensuring they had their database available to minimise downtime.
Backup Solution was also setup for Onsite Backups and encrypted Off-Site backups to our Data Centre. This means that they have full backup protection, and we could reliably recover their systems and data on any device. This significantly reduced the constant pressure they were under to ensure their data was backed up. Our team is now able of detecting threats within their network and proactively resolving and managing those issues. We now monitor and manage their infrastructure, so they no longer have a major headache that was costing them time and productivity within their own business. This gave them more time to focus on their core responsibilities of growing their business. We were able to gain a clear understanding of their business after working with them for a while. This means we can provide advice that gives them peace of mind and helps them keep their business on track.
what were the key outcomes?
Bespoke IT Support
We collaborated closely with Alan Quine to implement a clearly defined bespoke service to assist them in thriving in their specific industry. We were able to identify any risks in their IT infrastructure and actively work to address them.
Seamless Migration
To improve internal efficiencies and experience as little downtime as possible, the migration from Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2019 was completely seamless.
Provide peace of mind
By providing a dependable backup solution and taking over their entire network, we were able to provide peace of mind. This has helped to protect their entire business and ensures that there is no downtime, allowing them to reach their full potential.
If we could leave 10 stars we would!
“Outstanding professional service from all at Edmondson’s 24/7.
Could not wish to be associated / partnered with a better IT company.
We invited Edmondsons to give us an IT health check and with the minimum of fuss have updated and upgraded all things IT.”
-Alan Quine
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