AAR
Advertising agency and marketing research agency, London

AAR helps clients and marketing agencies to establish and build successful relationships together - and maximize the benefit of working in partnership.

As an SME, AAR relies heavily on its IT systems and support services to ensure they are able to concentrate on delivering what their business does best, providing expert consulting advice to their clients.

With the existing IT infrastructure approaching end-of-life and presenting a real risk of failure and reduced performance, AAR decided to review its future technology requirements. They commissioned Connect to propose a replacement of their local IT infrastructure. Following careful consideration of the options to simply replace their 5 year old servers or move to a hosted solution, AAR took the plunge and switched to the Cloud.

There were a number of significant factors that influenced AAR's decision to opt for Connect's Cloud Services:

• nominal up-front investment and set up costs
• guaranteed uptime
• ongoing dedicated support
• business continuity protection

Sarah Nasmyth-Miller
Business Executive

"Connect's hosted services have provided us with real partner support and piece of mind that we can access our critical business applications when and where we need to. The added benefit of a no upfront capital expenditure to replace existing equipment with a simple single monthly payment means we have clear projections on IT costs and budgets."

Fairway Care
Recruitment company, West Midlands

Fairway Care is a fast-growing recruitment and training business specialising in healthcare and social services. Based in the West Midlands, the company has training facilities around the UK and a dedicated NVQ centre.

Fairway Care has expanded rapidly in recent years with 20 staff in three offices - plus hundreds of staff working on client sites. But the IT infrastructure had not developed to keep pace with the growth of the business. With no central server to store data or emails, it became increasingly difficult to share information about candidates and clients.

Rather than invest in new servers, Fairway opted to switch to Connect's Cloud Solution. Staff now access all their files directly over the internet from any location. Plus their key applications - a specialist recruitment package for client scheduling together with Microsoft Office and Exchange - are hosted remotely. To guarantee connectivity, Connect needed to upgrade the routers at each office but their internet lines were already fast enough to cope with the increased demand.

Alex O'Neill, Operations
Manager, said:

"Connect delivered a solution that was precisely tailored to our needs. We've seen immediate benefits from shifting to the Cloud, particularly enabling our consultants to work more easily when on the move."

UKFT
Trade association, central London

UKFT is the trade association for British fashion, clothing and knitwear companies. The organisation provides essential advice on everything from running a business to selling to a global market.

UKFT depends on its IT infrastructure to provide guidance to members and promote their interests to the wider world. Critical applications include email, Microsoft Office, Sage and a bespoke database package. Rather than renew the warranties on their three year old servers, the organisation opted to switch to Connect's Cloud Service.

All of UKFT's applications are now hosted in the cloud, with Sage 200 hosted on a separate standalone hosted server. On the day of the switchover, one of Connect's Project Managers was on site to ensure a smooth transition. As part of the move, UKFT upgraded their internet line to a faster ethernet circuit to guarantee their employees were able to work without interruption.

Adam Mansell, Chief Operating Officer, said:

"For the UKFT, email and the internet are the lifeblood of our organisation. We also need to have access to our key data and applications 24/7 - and that is precisely what Connect's Cloud Service is designed to deliver."