Company Background
With around 40 employees, the Bourne Group of Companies provides financial and consultancy services to individuals and privately-owned businesses. The Group is made up of 4 companies which offer a diverse mix of specialist skills with a client-focused approach:
Brewers Chartered Accountants offers a comprehensive range of tax and accounting services for privately-owned businesses and individuals.
Clarity Consulting provides business planning and advice to help privately-owned organisations improve performance, add value and grow.
Omnium Wealth Management is a wholly independent and privately-owned financial planning business.
Omnium Employee Benefits provides group benefits solutions including pensions, life assurance, private medical, income protection and critical illness cover as well as salary sacrifice, cycle-to-work and childcare voucher schemes.
A Gorgeous Location Doesn’t Come Without its Challenges
The Bourne Group is located in the picturesque Surrey hills. Intermittent internet connectivity severely impacted business productivity during network outages, which occurred frequently during adverse weather conditions. With all business data, collaboration and email solutions hosted on-premise, users experienced frequent downtime while working remotely or even on-site.
Working remotely is an integral part of the flexible corporate culture at the Bourne Group. Some roles, and more specifically in the finance industry, rely on being able to access company data quickly and react to changing financial trends at any given time.
The time had come for change.
Better Connectivity
The unstable network connection was replaced with a robust business internet connection, along with high-bandwidth wireless fail-over in the unlikely event that the primary connection fails. This solution is cost-effective and provides a near 100% up-time guarantee.
Fully Cloud-Based
Due to the Bourne Group’s flexible ways of working, a move to the cloud was the best course of action. Adam crafted and implemented a migration plan to help the Bourne Group and its companies move all on-site data and applications into cloud-based solutions. The business is now entirely cloud-based, eliminating the need for remote connections to the office.
Cloud-based mobile apps also provide a better user-experience when accessing email and documents when compared to on-site solutions, allowing users to work more efficiently on-the-go.
Security First
Multi-factor authentication and device management policies ensure company data stays safe, even in the rare case that a company device is lost or stolen. If a device cannot be recovered, it can be remotely wiped to ensure company data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
Disaster Recovery
Incremental backups on all cloud-hosted systems provide flexible disaster recovery options for all core applications and data. Retention policies ensure data is kept for the legally mandated periods and not beyond its expiration date.
Reclaiming Office Space
With all on-premise hosting solutions now in the cloud, the server room was no longer necessary for daily operations. The empty server room’s walls were knocked down and is now reintegrated back into the open-planned office space, allowing the addition of 6 desks to be added comfortably.
A Bright Future in the Cloud
The Bourne Group is thriving with their carefully planned cloud-based infrastructure plan. Flexible working policies, high availability, reliability and robust backup solutions ensure that people can work effectively and in ways which suit them best. Microsoft’s cloud collaboration solutions allow the varying teams to collaborate in ways which suit the type of work and the team’s preference, resulting in a happier and more effective workforce.
