The Leo House

Situation

The company’s most frequent problems among others, have been lack of a business class firewall, lack of a business class switch utilization, no network cable management, lack of implementation of workstation security policies to restrict user access, no implementation of server policies to create printers & shortcuts as needed automatically, lack of back up preformed internally, no web filter to restrict user web access and lack of internet connections to T1 internet access. Other problems have been failed communications, connectivity and performance issues.

The company’s management decided company in a more efficient manner they needed to improve customer service, keep costs down by standardizing many of its processes, update its computer systems, deploy servers to consolidate applications and thus some of the company’s everyday functions, avoid loss of productivity and increase the speed and accuracy of business decisions as well as the customer service and satisfaction.

Solution

NITConnect has conducted an assessment of the Leo House’s current IT infrastructure and has summarized key findings. NITConnect has also provided initial recommendations addressing infrastructure requirements, focusing mostly on areas that should be considered in the near to intermediate future, but also making long term recommendations.

The overall objectives of NITConnect in assessing the Leo House are the following:

• Evaluate the current network infrastructure architecture.
• Evaluate business requirements necessary for future network design and planning.
• Design and propose solutions based on need.
• Recognize threats to network and operational security.
• Take Care of all current and future software and hardware needs of the company, so that it can increase productivity, contribute to the company’s bottom line, save time by making specific repetitive tasks easier and faster to perform.
• Help all personnel concentrate on their everyday tasks without worrying about technical issues, failures or long interruptions in their daily jobs.

Benefits

The benefits for the Leo House after implementing NITConnect’s proposals were multiple, but they can be summarized mainly as follows:

• By implementing NITConnect’s recommendations along with the appropriate network infrastructure solution, the Leo House increased productivity, guests satisfaction, speed of service, eliminated previously existing downtime, eliminated threats to network and operational security, took care of any current and future software and hardware needs of the company, eliminated time waste by making specific repetitive tasks easier and faster to perform and finally helped personnel to concentrate on their daily tasks without having to deal with any unnecessary technical issues.
• With its new desktop productivity the Leo House has an integrated set of technologies that provide the foundation for a new way of doing business.
• The new IT infrastructure takes less time to maintain, has no downtime or failures and a new set of communication and collaboration tools. The Leo House employees are increasing their productivity through better information management, improved mobility, and newly automated business processes. For a company of 20 people, this saves approximately 70 hours a week, equating to the workload of almost two employees that the Leo House would have to hire.
• The proposed infrastructure has also enabled the Leo House to improve customer service and connect with clients in new and mutually beneficial ways. Customers waiting time for reservations and communication has dropped to half, and thus the Leo House can process more clients and faster with the same amount of employees.
• The Leo House infrastructure has also been designed around the redundancy concept, meaning that future expansion of employees and/or offices has been taken into consideration. Furthermore, employees who might want to work from another office or from home save many hours every month.
• Finally, the company has also simplified security management.