Imperial Ductwork Services is one of the leading companies in the manufacture and installation of Ductwork Ventilation Systems. Alongside a head office located in Sidcup, Kent, the company has offices in London, Milton Keynes, and Denmark.
We have been Imperial Ductwork Services’ IT supplier since 2010, and we have worked alongside them as they’ve grown from 35 users to 130 users, with multiple offices.
The Challenge
As the coronavirus pandemic hit businesses, Imperial Ductwork Services needed to ensure that their employees would be able to work remotely where possible. They knew that they needed to improve the resilience of their email system, and they also needed to be able to incorporate a video conferencing system. This would allow them to remain working dynamically as a team whilst working from home.
An added challenge was that due to the rapid nature of Covid-19, they needed to have a system set up rapidly. Maintaining emails was critical – the client simply couldn’t afford hours of downtime, so it was imperative that we kept the client’s systems up and running.
Our Approach
At Lucid Systems, we always start by discussing the situation in-depth with the client so we can understand their pain points and create ways to overcome them. To start this project, we spoke with the senior management team to understand their requirements, and then we were able to provide recommendations with full pros and cons. This allowed them to make an informed decision.
Our final recommendation was to migrate to Office 365 with a hybrid solution that would minimise disruption and provide a seamless transition to the end-users. We wanted to ensure that the client could continue to use their current archiving solution along with a centralised automatic email signature software. This allowed them to maintain access to their emails during the migration whilst being to use Microsoft Teams would allow them to collaborate effectively.
The majority of users already had their own laptops and we sourced external webcams for those who needed them. This ensured full accessibility to video conferencing for all staff members.
In addition to the migration of Office 365, we needed to provide effective training and support to their users. Many had never worked remotely before, and video conferencing was a new form of communication that many were unsure of. To combat this, we created a bespoke user guide which allowed staff to understand the basics of how to use video conferencing software. We also held several video conferences with key staff members to help them get used to using the software. This approach proved successful and gave the client confidence that they could use video conferencing effectively.