The business is increasingly reliant on IT. The vast majority of communication with clients, with other third parties and internally is by email and most staff spend the majority of their time working with a PC or laptop, either in the office or at a client’s premises, or whilst travelling, says Mike Parkinson, Finance Director at Close Brothers Corporate Finance. Mike, who has direct responsibility for IT as well as all other backoffice operations comments, “It is essential that the IT infrastructure is reliable and efficient and supports our corporate financiers when they are advising clients. Ours is a 24 hour business where we are likely to be dealing with clients anywhere in the world. We cannot afford to have downtime as much of our work is highly time sensitive.”

In the summer of 2005, following a series of external business audits, Close Brothers
management decided to conduct an independent third-party review of IT systems and infrastructure. “There had been nothing major but we’d had one or two issues – some
downtime with email and different versions of software being used. We wanted to find out if we could be doing anything better and make sure we were getting best value”, says Mike.

Close Brothers commissioned Deloitte to conduct this study and the resulting report made two main recommendations; the adoption of a well-managed infrastructure and a move from Lotus Notes messaging to Microsoft Exchange. The resilience and performance of systems, it also noted, were already very good.

Servo was already providing maintenance and support for Close Brothers’ servers and,
when required, hands-on assistance for the two-strong internal IT team. When Deloitte
made its recommendations, Mike had no hesitation in asking Servo to deliver what was
required.

“One of the aims of the well-managed infrastructure project was to improve security by introducing controls to prevent unauthorised devices being connected to equipment and unauthorised software from being downloaded from the Internet”, Mike explains.

“We also ensured that all PCs and laptops were configured consistently and were running the same versions of software. This made IT support easier. The use of Active Directory made the management of IT policy and permissions easier and quicker. Finally we introduced a standard ‘image’ for all desktops including a corporate screen saver – this helps our IT support when they visit a desktop as all the shortcuts are in the same place. It also helps to promote our brand internally.”

Servo played a key part in helping to design the entire project. “It was a collaborative process. I knew what I wanted from a business perspective and my IT guys knew where the sensitivities would be and we relied upon Servo to guide us through it.”

The implementation of Microsoft Exchange 2003 was aimed at bringing the messaging system up-to-date and providing a working environment which more of Close Brothers’ staff would feel comfortable using. The firm had used Lotus Notes for many years but had not upgraded since version 5.0. An upgrade to version 7.0 was considered but in the end, Mike explains, the decision was made to switch. “Many of our staff had used Outlook in previous roles so there would be limited requirement for familiarisation. We were also at the early stages of looking for a new CRM application and it was apparent that having Microsoft Exchange would provide for easy integration with a range of leading CRM products.”

The well-managed infrastructure was implemented first to ensure that there was a stable environment. Once this was established, the new email system was rolled out. For the users however, it was presented as a single project. Servo helped with the planning and to ensure the changes were presented in a positive way.

As part of this process, Servo advised the use of Websense to control which websites users could access. It recommended imposing very tight controls initially and relaxing them gradually as user requirements became clear. Conditioning staff to the idea that restrictions would be in place but allowing them to access sites that they needed to view with the permission of IT has worked well.

Another challenge was the question of what to do with the large repository of Lotus Notes messages that Close Brothers had accumulated. They decided to retain these on a dedicated server. Servo developed a simple application that enables staff to click on a special icon on their desktop to open and view old messages, but not manipulate them in any way.

Servo also helped Close Brothers address the retention and archiving of email. The business of corporate finance often requires the transferring of many large documents and presentations and it is vital to retain almost every piece of information.

To do this, Servo recommended the use of ZANTAZ Enterprise Archive Solution (EAS) for Microsoft Exchange. “That’s been fantastic”, says Mike, “Exchange is quite unforgiving really – once you get to the mailbox limits it just stops and we found that we had huge issues trying to get people to archive their emails and then, when they hit the limit, they would panic and rush into archiving and deleting messages and from a compliance point of view that was not ideal.” Using ZANTAZ EAS has taken the entire issue away from users. Emails are stored automatically as they enter the message repository so there is no issue with archiving.

The Exchange 2003 system went live in March 2006 and the benefits of this and the well-managed infrastructure have been felt by everyone at Close Brothers, says Mike. There has been a significant reduction in the number of isolated IT issues and Microsoft Exchange promises to make the planned implementation of CRM software much easier.

At the end of 2006, the company installed a solution that had been adapted from Microsoft CRM version 3. This integrated very closely with Exchange and users are able to move seamlessly between the two as Microsoft CRM – to the user’s eyes – functions within Microsoft Exchange and Outlook.

Working with Servo to deliver a well-managed infrastructure and make the move to Exchange, has been a very positive experience, says Mike. It has underlined the perception Close Brothers Corporate Finance already had about an established and dependable supplier. “Servo knows our company very well. We have had the same account manager since before I joined the company over five years ago and she knows our business, what our users are like and about the softer issues we face when dealing with corporate financiers.”

They are also very technically sound and always approachable, he adds. “Servo demonstrated their technical credentials through the guys who came in and did the work for us. They lived up to expectations and made us feel that we had made the right decision. We rate them very highly. They are nice people to deal with and they are not too pushy. I always feel that I can pick the phone up and have a sensible, grown-up conversation with them – they know our business well enough to know what we are interested in.”

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