Case Study – Gilbert Meher

The Client

Founded in 2011, Gilbert Meher is a recruitment search partnership, finding the very best talent within the sectors of Healthcare, Social Care, Specialist Education and the Life Science Industries.

They are adept in working with all size clients, from SMEs to large multi-national corporations. From CEOs to care assistants, they have a rich track record of appointing quality placements.

The Challenge

Back in 2018, we were introduced by an existing customer of ours, which was also a recruitment specialist. Having hosted our existing customer since 2015, they were more than happy to connect us to Gilbert Meher, which was in need of a new hosted IT supplier.

Gilbert Meher had not suffered a particular IT problem, but was mindful of a myriad of inefficiencies which were not conducive to their growing business. For example;

• Every staff member had their own PC, with applications and pockets of data
• Application updates were inconsistent across all staff member PCs
• Staff were unable to hot desk if they so wished to
• IT support was lacking, mainly relying upon in house champions (great if they were in!)
• Important security controls such as anti-virus and password policies, required refinement
• The in-house server was ageing and would soon become a liability (especially due to an impending office move)

Fortunately, our referring client had kindly outlined how we had transformed their recruitment consultancy! So, there was hope for Gilbert Meher…

The Solution

Given that Gilbert Meher was a sizable organisation with on-premise equipment to consider, we decided first of all, to go north and visit them in Leeds. Whilst it was a pleasure to meet with the team, we were also able to scope out items such as the PCs, the server and internet lines.

We were also able to meet with an external IT consultant whom they had hired, to oversee an impending office move, which was ideal timing with the proposed migration to Managed hosting.

Armed with our newly discovered knowledge, we were able to accurately propose to Gilbert Meher, a custom Hosted IT platform. This environment was multiple server build which allowed us to split their many staff between servers, to ensure ideal load balancing and fault tolerance.

Furthermore we provisioned a new Exchange email platform for Gilbert Meher, ready to bring their email and collaborations tools into the light ages!

The Migration 

Gilbert Meher were keen to “go-live” on the new platform a couple of weeks or so before their intended company office move. Therefore, we had a deadline to work towards (lucky that we enjoy a challenge!).

We started the migration as we always do, with a scoping call involving key personnel at Gilbert Maher. From here we were able to assemble a bespoke project plan, along with a 360-degree visualisation of their existing IT environment, which we shared with Gilbert Meher.

Then from this discovery and planning process, it was heads down from us whilst we copied over all of their data, setup their company applications, created all of their new users accounts and copied over all IT settings.

Ultimately, our goal was to make the solution “home from home” for them – albeit a refreshed home! But to ensure that this was the case, we got all staff to login and test the solution a few days ahead of the intended switchover date (as we always do).
Fortunately, Gilbert Meher promptly waved the green flag from their testing phase, so it was full steam ahead to the Go-Live!

Go-Live

Gilbert Meher went live on their new system on a Monday morning. Essentially “downing tools” as a business on the Friday evening, ahead of the Monday morning Go-Live. And thanks to the thorough familiarisation and testing phase, we all got off to a flying start!

All staff were able to easily login to the new system with minimal issues. Our goal throughout, was to ensure the solution was simple and native, in look and feel. So, it was no surprise that come mid-morning, staff were heads down, seeking out the worlds best occupational talent, once again.

We didn’t stop there however, we ensured that all printers and scanning devices were reconfigured and working as before.

Furthermore, our team were floor walking, ensuring that everybody was happy and comfortable within their new IT home.

Then come the end of week one, things were so settled that we transitioned Gilbert Maher from our implementation phase, to our business as usual support care. Needless to say, the Go-Live was a resounding success. And all done ahead of the office move deadline.

Post Go-Live and Reflections

As we reflect on Gilbert Meher’s implementation some three years later, they have been a textbook customer for us. They are quick to ask for assistance when they require it and in turn, we’re quick to recommend changes and upgrades when we identify them.

For example, in 2021 we transitioned Gilbert Maher to the Office 365 platform for their email and collaboration workflows (whilst still retaining the Hosted Desktop service for their primary IT platform).

We’re proud to say that they have enjoyed a 100% service uptime, with no security breaches. Furthermore, the hosted platform is still working for them fantastically well, helping them through the Covid 19 pandemic, but also helping their business scale with ease.

Summary

You don’t find customers like Gilbert Meher very often, practically perfect in every way. A pleasure to deal with always, they set the gold standard with all forms of their business interaction. Needless to say three years in, we hope to keep the relationship going for many more years!