Helping Philharmonia transition smoothly into day-to-day IT support
Industry: Arts and culture / Charity
ramsac Services: Managed IT support, onboarding and transition support, Microsoft Intune
The Philharmonia is a registered charity and internationally touring orchestra. Resident at the Southbank Centre in London, it also holds residencies across the UK and delivers an extensive programme of performances, recordings, education and community projects.
As a UK-based managed service provider, ramsac supports organisations with outsourced IT, cybersecurity and AI transformation, including totalIT secure, its complete, security-led IT management solution.
When Philharmonia Limited moved its IT support to ramsac, the immediate priority was to make the onboarding experience as smooth and reassuring as possible. This meant managing the practical details involved in moving from one provider to another, while building confidence in the new support relationship from day one.
The challenge
Like many organisations changing IT provider, Philharmonia’s transition involved a number of moving parts. Existing contracts needed to be handed over, devices needed to be brought fully into management, and several software and configuration items still needed to be completed.
Despite the complexity that can accompany an early-stage transition, David Stacey, Director of Finance & Resources at Philharmonia described the onboarding positively:
“Pretty smooth… all good really.”
The focus throughout the onboarding process was to ensure that outstanding issues were clearly identified, properly owned and progressed, while providing Philharmonia with the support and reassurance it needed during the changeover.
The solution
ramsac provided hands-on support throughout the transition, helping Philharmonia work through the practical and technical details involved in moving into managed IT support.
Clear communication and responsive points of contact were particularly important. Having people who could quickly pick up questions and take responsibility for progressing them helped to build confidence at an important stage in the relationship.
David particularly highlighted the support provided by Natalie:
“Natalie’s been great in terms of communicative, responsiveness and picking up stuff.”
As the onboarding progressed, ramsac and Philharmonia worked through a number of practical priorities. These included ensuring that laptops and users were correctly registered, progressing outstanding setup work involving Intune and Ascend, completing the handover of remaining third-party contracts and subscriptions, and making sure the support team had appropriate visibility of Philharmonia’s environment and known issues.
Clear conversations also helped establish what was covered by day-to-day IT support and where responsibility for wider infrastructure matters sat. Setting these expectations early gave Philharmonia greater confidence in how the support relationship would operate once the formal onboarding process was complete.
Moving into day-to-day support
An important part of the transition was ensuring that Philharmonia’s team knew who to contact, how to request support and what would happen when an issue was raised.
David’s experience of contacting the support team gave him confidence that Philharmonia’s users would receive practical and responsive assistance:
“If you pick up the phone to the support team, they’re really good. They immediately jump onto your computer and sort things out.”
Philharmonia also recognised that the support experience would continue to become stronger as the ramsac team developed an even deeper understanding of its systems, software and ways of working.
Maintaining clear information about the organisation’s environment and recurring issues will help future support interactions to be handled even more quickly and effectively. Philharmonia also highlighted the importance of tailored support for key stakeholders, including priority handling for support requests from its CEO.
The results
Overall, David described the onboarding as a positive experience and felt confident about Philharmonia’s move into ongoing day-to-day support.
The transition combined responsive communication, trusted points of contact and a structured approach to resolving the outstanding practical details that come with changing IT provider.
Reflecting on the transition, David concluded:
“You’ve made it as smooth as we could have hoped.”
With the onboarding process nearing completion and the remaining technical and contractual items being progressed, Philharmonia now has a clear foundation for its ongoing support relationship with ramsac.
