Datek Solutions: Case study

1. Founded in 1991 as a two-man operation
specialising strictly in IT recruitment,
GCS Recruitment Specialists (GCS) now
has a turnover of over £30m, employs
over 80 staff and has evolved into one of
the UK’s leading multi-sector recruitment
businesses. GCS provides technology,
financial services and engineering staff
to businesses of all sizes.
GCS’ unique approach and value-added
services saw the business continue to
flourish right through the recession.
However, under the pressure of growth and
expansion the in-house IT support team
could not meet demand, and GCS quickly
recognised that its IT needs were rapidly
expanding beyond their own capabilities.
Business growth led to change
Grahame Winman, GCS’ Business Systems
Manager, along with the company’s Finance
Director, started to investigate alternatives
and quickly whittled a list of 10-15 IT
companies down to a shortlist of only 3.
On meeting with Datek one of the first
questions asked was why Datek thought it
would be better to outsource IT rather than
continue to manage in-house?
Datek’s experience in working with other
businesses with exactly the same challenges
had shown how difficult it is for IT Managers
to keep abreast of every new technology
when they have been employed to look
after one specific environment.
Malcolm Kanter, Managing Director of
Datek explains “If you are just one person
with a highly pressurised responsibility
to keep IT working, it is very difficult to
“We made a very big decision to move away from someone
we’d had known for so long. It could have gone very
wrong; instead it flourished. IT has grown in stature within the
organisation, and I’m very pleased with that.”
Grahame Winman, Business Systems Manager, GCS Ltd
stay up to date on all technologies in the
market. Even keeping documentation up
to date is a challenge, so having the time
to look at strategic IT needs when you’re
busy supporting the day-to-day running of
the business becomes a real predicament.
Experience has shown us how much
companies can be at risk when essential
information and responsibility resides with
just one individual.”
GCS had no doubt that this situation very
much reflected its own.
How to manage the change
Overcoming the challenges of transition is
one of the biggest hurdles. In the case of
GCS, an established business that is highly
reliant on its IT infrastructure, any potential
loss of performance had costly implications.
By implementing Datek’s proven 3-stage
process the transition was fast, efficient and
cost-effective, with no down-time for the
business throughout.
Where on earth do we start?
Firstly, GCS spoke to the incumbent IT
manager and a three-month overlap period
was agreed. Having been in the role for 15
years, the IT manager was well versed in the
minutiae of the complex 14 server system
currently in place and genuinely wanted to
ensure GCS business was not affected by the
change.
“One thing we are always conscious of,
is helping businesses to utilise existing
resources and knowledge, whilst respecting
the individuals who will be most affected by
the change. We always do everything we
can to make the transition as straightforward
as possible.” continues Kanter.
Datek was able to obtain a comprehensive
understanding of the existing systems and
after three months, a smooth handover from
the in-house IT team to Datek took place.
Maintaining status quo
The second factor is to maintain stability
and not be tempted to change an existing
set-up. It was this ‘lowest risk’ strategy that
sealed the deal for Datek.
“When we went initially met, GCS asked us
if we did come on-board what would we
change- and we said ‘nothing’. We’ll take
you on and support you exactly as you are.”
“Keeping things stable was of paramount
importance. Other IT companies go in and
change everything before they properly
understand the business. We’re more
professional than that.”
Malcolm Kanter, MD, Datek Solutions
GCS CASE STUDY
GCS Recruitment Specialists successfully transition from in-house to
out-sourced IT support.
“Our business was going
from strength to strength and
whilst things weren’t actually
broken, we were beginning to
experience some significant
challenges with IT’s ability to
meet the business’ demands”
Grahame Winman, Business Systems
Manager, GCS Recruitment Specialists.
CASE STUDY

2. 01753 540000 services@datek.co.uk www.datek.co.uk
Utilising internal skills
Recognising that GCS had been used to
working with an internal IT manager to
troubleshoot, prioritise and resolve issues,
Datek was keen that someone internally
took ownership and Grahame Winman
stepped up as the first point of call for staff
during the transitional period to manage
users’ expectations.
The new out-source model meant call
logging was required. Grahame was able
to provide an immediate response and
feed any potential challenges or issues back
to the Datek helpdesk in real-time. What
could have been a challenging period went
extremely smoothly.
“Grahame managed the transition really
well and found users actually preferred the
outsourced approach. It ensured issues
didn’t slip through the cracks, and left
little room for human error. Everything
ran like clockwork, due to our thorough
understanding of the infrastructure and GCS
managing their users’ expectations.”
Malcolm Kanter, MD, Datek Solutions
Within GCS, Grahame was praised for his
handling of the transition and for choosing
the right partner. As a result, he received a
Most Valued Professional (MVP) award at
GCS annual awards event, in recognition of
his part in this successful IT move.
Opening a new Dublin office
GCS have offices in London and Reading,
recently opened a new office in Dublin.
Established staff moving to the new
Dublin office had high expectations for IT
performance and stability and it was critical
that GCS was able to experience the same
levels of service people were used to.
Datek proposed a remote desktop solution
and feedback from users was immediately
positive with people reporting that working
from Ireland was actually quicker than the
legacy solution that had been in place in the
main office before Datek had taken over!
Time for a new infrastructure
It was soon clear to Datek that the
expensive, out of date and complicated IT
system in place was slowing GCS down and
creating unnecessary stress for its users. GCS
business systems had grown in an ad-hoc
way without any strategic planning and as
such was causing operational issues as staff
moved about the business.
GCS’ IT infrastructure was running on a
complex and expensive 14 server system.
The company was using a mixture of
outdated Windows Server 2003 and 2008
technology, and after an air conditioning
failure in the server room of their Reading
branch, it became obvious that a centralised
virtual solution in an environment controlled
datacentre was the way forward.
Datek embarked on a new project with
GCS to overhaul its entire infrastructure and
transform it into a future-proof and resilient
system, moving the whole IT estate to a new
data centre.
“Datek has been very active in managing
the project, letting us know which bits to do
first. They highlight things we don’t need to
tolerate. It used to take 30-45 minutes for
users to log on when they moved desks and
once the full implementation is completed it
will take only seconds.”
Grahame Winman, Business Systems
Manager, GCS
Virtualisation offered space
and security
Now Datek is rolling out Virtualised
Windows Server 2012, Exchange 2013,
VMware, HP and Dell hardware and several
specialised third-party solutions, specific to
the recruitment industry.
“Some of the bespoke applications and
databases we use are unique to us, and we
wouldn’t expect any external company to
come in and understand those. Another
company may have said, ‘they’re not
our applications, that‘s someone else’s
responsibility’. Datek’s response was to find
out how they work and how they fit in with
our environment. That’s a brilliant attitude.”
Grahame Winman, Business Systems
Manager, GCS Ltd
To reassure Grahame that GCS’ data would
be secure, Datek invited him on a tour of the
new data centre, based in North London.
With the initial part of the transformation
complete, GCS no longer has to be
concerned with environmental factors that
could impact their infrastructure’s stability.
Additionally, if GCS choose to move offices,
there’s no need to move on-premises
servers, ensuring working continuity.
“What GCS had was older kit without full
resilience, now they have brand new kit
on a brand new platform with complete
resilience. Because they were stuck with
historic expensive contracts and an old and
creaking network, huge amounts of cash
were being spent just keeping everything
static. Actually ‘doing nothing’ was costing
more money than updating the platform.
The new infrastructure means GCS has an
entirely refreshed future-proof IT platform
that will pay for itself in no time.”
Malcolm Kanter, MD, Datek Solutions
“Usually, with change comes disruption
- some element of outage or lack of
productivity in some area. This wasn’t the
case with Datek. At no point have we gone
backward, we have only gone forward.”
Grahame Winman, Business Systems
Manager, GCS
Everyone’s a winner…
“By acting as an initial point
of contact for staff, I was able
to feedback issues to Datek
and give them a greater
understanding of how GCS
works and the drivers for us
and our infrastructure.”
“For me it is all about the
relationship, understanding
GCS’ needs and delivery.
Datek do all of these things
really well and have helped us
move to the new environment
seamlessly”
Grahame Winman, Business Systems
Manager, GCS Ltd
Grahame Winman, Business Systems
Manager, GCS Ltd
“The approach Datek took
enabled our systems to
evolve at the same pace
as our internal processes,
allowing us to migrate to a
new architecture and solution
better suited to our needs.”
Grahame Winman, Business Systems
Manager, GCS Ltd