By offering a complete IT support package to Shipleys LLP, ramsac has been involved at all levels of its IT facility. Following the initial audit in 2007, for example, ramsac assisted Shipleys’ existing IT Manager with the development of the in-house IT-support team. More recently Shipleys LLP opened a small office in Birmingham for a specialist Insolvency team that required the same level of secure connection and systems access as the other company offices. ramsac enabled the new office with full access to the company wide network, so not only can they fully integrate with the wider company, but also senior management can remotely access the individual computers of the Insolvency team if required.
Shipleys also consulted ramsac on its business continuity and disaster recovery plans. The result was a site failover from the London office to the Godalming office using a combination of replicated kit and virtualisation using VMware and Doubletake software.
Shipleys has a blend of ramsac specialists advising and integrating with their in-house team including a ramsac outsourced IT Director, who attends key IT meetings and helps with the vision and planning, to ensure that IT is an enabler for the business and its aspirations.
“This is an area where working with ramsac is particularly useful,” adds Fisher. “It is a full time job staying abreast of the latest developments in IT systems, so we rely on ramsac’s expertise and professional opinion to help us choose the best and most cost-effective solutions to meet our needs and the expectations of our clients.”
More recently, ramsac assisted Shipleys LLP in assessing its inter-office communications lines to streamline performance whilst maintaining the highest levels of security. “The use of leading industry developments and products makes Shipleys an extremely advanced, agile and flexible practice and this is facilitated greatly by the vision, experience and advice of ramsac. Because of the nature of our business having a fast but secure link is essential and ramsac has not only helped us to choose the best solutions for our needs but also sourced a specialist supplier to install it.”
Future IT projects include Shipleys LLP’s audit system, which will shortly be ‘paperless’ and the installation of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, which is being integrated with Practice Engine – which is the primary contact database across the company network. “ramsac has the expertise to be able to oversee the integration of different technologies, allowing us to pick and choose off-the-shelf solutions which give us exactly what we need, wit ut the considerable costs of having bespoke software developed especially for us,” adds Fisher. “We trust ramsac as our IT partner, they offer a well-targeted and costeffective alternative to a big in-house team and we would recommend them to any small business with similar IT needs to us.”