Consumables

Established for more than two decades, Consumables are one of the leading providers of workplace items in the UK. The company supplies a wide range of industries and offers 500,000 product lines across goods such as office supplies, PPE, electrical goods and packaging.

In addition, Consumables offers a variety of useful “smart solutions” to help customers manage the stock levels of these items, as well as customer and supply chain management. The company also provides technical consultancy and training to help with waste reduction and inventory control.

The challenge

As a growing company, Consumables wanted to ensure they had a modern, proactive IT solution that could support their business as they continued to expand. Their existing solution was coming to the end of its term, posing the ideal opportunity to look at new ways to simplify their IT services whilst reducing costs.

The business was utilising two separate technologies for file data, creating unnecessary complexity. Additionally, the lack of control over the devices at their remote sites was causing additional administration and support, which needed to be addressed.

Consumables’ goal was to find a Cloud-first solution which would simplify their existing IT estate and reduce the need for management and support, as well as to adopt a proactive, multi-tiered approach to security without increasing complexity. The business was therefore keen to work in partnership with an IT provider who thoroughly understood their requirements and could provide thought leadership and direction for their IT strategy going forward, and felt that Transparity demonstrated perfectly how they could take advantage of new Microsoft Cloud technology whilst reducing costs.

The solution

Transparity introduced Microsoft 365, offering “always up-to-date” access to Office 365 applications across a wide variety of devices, as well as enhanced security features such as Endpoint Manager and Advanced Threat Protection. Endpoint Manager allows secure access from any connected device and location, increasing flexibility and meaning that the existing Citrix environment could be decommissioned.

Thin clients were replaced with Windows Surface devices, utilising the inherent flexibility within Microsoft 365 for emails and files. This allowed the organisation to remove complex architecture while modernising and simplifying the access to core business applications. The combination of devices and Microsoft 365 licences created a platform that could scale as the business expands, whilst paving the way for additional features in the future such as telephony, voice and video conferencing.

Additionally, the provision of their Microsoft 365 licences through Transparity meant that Consumables had complimentary access to Transparity’s CSP Managed Support Service. A high-quality service included as standard, it provides access to First- to Third-Line engineers for any support issue or service request.

Due to the reduced complexity of the Microsoft 365 solution, costs were reduced significantly. Consumables realised savings of approximately £2000 a month, as their hosting and support costs were substantially reduced.

The outcome

Consumables’ new Cloud-first strategy was an IT transformation which has brought their estate up to date and will prepare them for future challenges. Their simplified environment is now easily accessible remotely whilst remaining highly secure, with the support and management taken on by Transparity as standard.

Most importantly, however, was the new partnership that was forged between Consumables and Transparity, giving the company confidence that their IT estate was in safe hands and being managed efficiently. Consumables now have a provider that understands their needs and goals, with Technical Support, Project Management and Account Management services all improving dramatically. The company now has a clear path defined for further Microsoft Cloud adoption to meet their business objective of removing complexity.

“I’m so impressed with Transparity; the team are fantastic and super professional. I’ve now had the pleasure of dealing with Lucy – who has been an amazing Project Manager – as well as Sam, Leanne, Fraser and James, and everyone has been friendly, professional and knowledgeable. I am delighted that we made this move to you and to the latest Microsoft package. Thank you, Team Transparity!”
Jonathan Hall, Managing Director at Consumables