Strengthening the IT systems backbone for Smith of Derby
Helping Smith of Derby bring their IT system in line with their globally-renowned business
CASE STUDY
Running since 1856, Smith of Derby are world-renowned clockmaker, manufacturing, servicing and restoring timepieces in the world’s most famous landmarks. From St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Majlis Oman, the Commerce Building at The Bund in China as well as home town icons Donington Park’s Pit Lane and Derby Cathedral, Smith of Derby has a clock in all corners of the world.
The IT challenges world-renowned clockmakers faced
Their main IT challenge was that they’d trusted their IT systems to a managed service provider, expecting them to proactively manage and configure their systems and services to support the business’s day-to-day operation. This wasn’t being handled correctly which caused the business to fall into a negative loop of firefighting one system failure after another. The business felt out of control and didn’t know where to turn.
This is where Economit stepped in to help restore the calm to the team at Smith of Derby and help them regain control of their runaway systems. Our solution helped reduce their IT costs by 20%, saving the business essential budget at the same time.
“As an innovator in the clock industry, it is vital that we constantly move forward as technology progresses and it is key for us to be at the forefront of this progression in terms of our manufacturing processes and procedures.”
Peter Barry - Financial Director, Smith of Derby
Some of the issues Economit discovered
When we started working with Smith of Derby and diving into their main issues, some of the bigger ones our team discovered included:
- Several complex data backup strategies were in place but many data elements were excluded from the backup methods, making them ineffective
- The server operating systems were old and poorly configured
How we helped resolve them
To solve Smith of Derby’s complex IT challenges, our team at Economit created a strategy that included adopting cloud technologies and reducing costs with virtual assistance. By introducing a virtualisation strategy, Smith of Derby could reduce operating costs and find other service providers to manage their uptime. By simplifying their services and streamlining multiple workloads into just one, we helped cut operation costs, decreased overheads, and increased efficiency.
When we started rolling out their fresh IT system, we placed a strong emphasis on user engagement, training, workshops and feedback to guide them into understanding how their new system works and the benefits it will bring.
This journey led to us becoming their outsourced IT Director and advising them on contract review supplier management which reduced their IT capital costs by 20%.
“As our outsourced IT Director, Economit have been responsible for our technology interests which has enabled us to reduce operational IT costs and risk. We value the independence of Economit highly because we trust that when they make recommendations, they’re made with the best interests of Smith of Derby.”
Peter Barry - Financial Director, Smith of Derby