Energy Saving Trust
Why 81G?
81G provides comprehensive and fully managed ICT services, working in partnership with its clients to help them understand and meet the needs of their businesses and stakeholders.
81G help to support multi-location organisations by providing consistent and reliable end-to-end IT infrastructure solutions. These enable organisations to rely on a fully available IT infrastructure service, allowing their clients the freedom to focus on core business goals and objectives.
81G's mission is to deliver "world class" managed services with a focus on service, quality, innovation and partnership. These values are key success factors for 81G and are embedded throughout the company's daily working practice and staff culture-values that allow the client to maximize their efforts on growth, expansion and profit.
Overview of Energy Saving Trust
Energy Saving Trust (EST) encourage energy efficiency and the integration of renewable energy sources to both home consumers and businesses. They provide expert, impartial advice and information as well as grants to encourage more efficient use of energy in buildings, homes and vehicles across the UK. They are also champions of small-scale renewable energy such as solar or wind power.
Brief supplied to 81G
EST already had an excellent and established internal IT department at their head office in London. However, there was a need to extend that support to their other branches throughout the UK inclusive of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, all of which required local IT support. By the very nature and ethos of the company it would have been inappropriate and 'energy inefficient' for EST to despatch internal IT staff from London to remote locations. 81G, with their nationwide network of regionally-based engineers, were able to offer skilled technicians, services and local expertise to engage at remote EST locations.
Objectives of the brief to 81G
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To provide full, all-round IT assistance and services to support EST's prestigious branch locations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Northern Ireland, or Head Office, when required. All 81G engineers are trained to be fully conversant with EST's IT infrastructure.
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To provide engineers who are able to ëwalk and talk' at remote locations as seamlessly as if they were EST engineers, in order to solve incidents where EST's in-house centrally-based team are unable to resolve an issue by telephone or remote management.
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To ensure availability of engineers close to the local sites, liaising with centralised EST IT Management and to provide a seamless and energy efficient service.
How the brief was executed
Following an in-depth understanding of the brief, 81G created a process to manage and execute requests ensuring the right skills and engineering resources are available at the right location at the right time.
81G resolved to provide "on demand flexible resourcing", allowing EST to call upon a fully qualified engineer from 81G's network at a scheduled time and place anywhere in the UK and, thus, to ensure a full IT diagnostics and solution service whenever necessary.
Conclusion
Working closely with EST, 81G offers a seamless approach combined with an excellent engagement model, and provides EST's remote office locations with an excellent IT service. In addition, the strategy maintains EST's energy efficient ethos and provides positive PR for their in-house IT department - a combination which was deemed a winning formula.
THE CLIENT'S VIEW
"EST's IT department had for many years remotely supported EST's offices in the devolved regions from the London office. This model however had several drawbacks:
When onsite support was required, the response time could be several days. Resources were taken from the London office. The travel time meant resources were lost for a longer time period than the actual tasks took in those offices. We were creating CO2 emissions through our travel."