Client story Global Marketing Group Cuts Costs with Consolidated Network

A global marketing company was moving to new offices in central London, bringing multiple agencies together into one building.

To ensure the success of the move, the client wanted a powerful networking infrastructure to allow the agencies to deliver quality services to their customers.

Insight managed a complex hardware supply project, delivering high value equipment to a city centre location and making it ready for agency staff to use within five weeks.

The Challenge

A leading marketing services group wanted to bring multiple agencies together under one roof.

However each separate agency in the group has its own prestigious client list. Having a shared database could therefore potentially enable one agency to access client information from another agency – giving it, and its clients, an unfair advantage.

For this reason, the group needed a consolidated network environment, which would be able to keep elements of the data segregated. This would further combat any potential issues around client confidentiality.

With more than 4,000 people working across the different agencies, avoiding lengthy downtime was critical. And in a congested central London location with limited access for vehicle parking, delivering the equipment presented a logistical challenge.

The Solution

The client had a global account with Insight and had already carried out a similar project in the US.

The UK project involved consolidating the network by bringing each of the agencies’ separate servers and storage together into two data centres, one of which was on-site.

Insight arranged for HPE hardware to be delivered to the client’s new offices in London working alongside its partner, a specialist technical courier.

The courier was able to circumvent the difficulties of large-scale delivery in central London including a limited loading bay and restricted access to the building due to security.

Once the equipment was on-site, Insight carried out Dead on Arrival (DOA) testing, which involved powering up and checking devices were operational. Insight also managed soak testing to verify the hardware would be able to perform with a typical daily workload.

The implementation ran smoothly thanks to regular communication with the client and daily calls with HPE. To minimise downtime the bulk of the work took place at weekends so the agency teams could continue working around the infrastructure upgrade.

Key Benefits

• More efficient use of resources thanks to consolidation of data storage and servers. 
• Rationalised costs by consolidating overheads and costs such as staff, IT support and management. 
• Helped improve commercial negotiations with HPE resulting in reduced cost of infrastructure. 
• A robust network infrastructure for the client’s new London offices. 
• Client confidentiality maintained thanks to data security between agencies. 
• Hardware delivered, powered up, tested and ready for agency staff to use. 
• Complex delivery of high value equipment managed smoothly. 
• Project completed five weeks from the initial purchase order sign-off.

The Results Highlights