With 34 branches and over 400 staff spread across Cumbria, the north of England and Dumfriesshire, the Cumberland Building Society is one of the largest building societies in the north of the UK. It also has a chain of 12 property agents - Cumberland Estate Agents, operating across the same region.
A traditional society with traditional values, the Cumberland has never introduced change for the sake of change, admits Gary Richardson, IT and Office Services Controller at the Society, but it operates in a fast-moving and competitive sector and must, like all organisations, move with the times.
Up until the end of 2004, the Cumberland Building Society had not given any of its staff access to the Internet or external email via its network. Instead it had a dozen standalone PCs in its head-office that were used for accessing the web and external email. “Departments could get onto the Internet and had their own local mailboxes but the 34 branches had no access at all”, Richardson explains.
It was time, the Society felt, that it provided all staff with email and gave them access to the world-wide web. “At the same time there were a couple of systems we were looking to implement that needed Internet access so there were sound business reasons for doing this as well.”
Making Internet connectivity available to the entire business would ensure that all the branches were right up to date with the latest information and policy details from the Society itself and from its partners. In addition, it would help both the Building Society and Estate Agency staff to view useful web sites and send and receive emails with people outside the Cumberland organisation itself.
Making the connection
Providing an Internet connection and email addresses for staff was not difficult and the
Cumberland's own IT staff organised this with their Internet Service Provider. The Society has its own 10-strong team of highly knowledgeable IT staff who manage and support systems at head office and across all 46 locations.
Now that the Society would be much more open and connected, an appropriate level of security was required and for this, the Society called on external advice. The 12 individual PCs that the Society had used to connect to the Internet did have anti-virus software, but Richardson had found this cumbersome to use and wanted to implement a better solution across the network.
The Society identified that it would also need Internet perimeter security, mail scanning, web proxy and web content filtering. It put together a list of requirements and invited proposals from a number of suppliers, one of which was Servo. There was already a good relationship between the Cumberland and Servo, which has been a trusted supplier to the Society for many years.
Servo has undertaken a number of projects for the Society, and always with exemplary results, says Richardson. “We have worked with them to replace the entire branch infrastructure, we have moved onto Windows 2003, a whole stack of projects have been done in partnership with Servo and they have proved to be excellent in terms of the services and the systems they provide. They know us and we know them, their engineers are good, they know what they are doing and I have no hesitation in using them.”
Management made easier
On-going management has been very easy as well. Servo conducts a regular on-site network and security health check. It works with the Cumberland's own IT staff to carry this out and it is, says Richardson, very useful and effective. “Servo works with our team to make sure that everything is OK.”
Even so, Servo was not the automatic choice for the security project says Richardson - it always has to win new business on merit. “We always go out to market - Servo doesn't get everything by any means. In this case, they came in with what we felt was the best and most proven solution. We knew they could do it and they did - they did exactly what they said they would.”
The relationship of trust that already existed was also a factor, he adds “Servo know our system because we have worked with them for a long time. They have a very strong HP and Microsoft background and they proved that they understood the security side, so they could provide everything we needed. We would not have wanted to go to different companies for the security - we wanted one to handle the lot.”
Servo had put forward a comprehensive solution for Internet security that involved a combination of Nokia applianceand Check Point firewall software, the MessageLabs email scanning service and Sophos anti-virus software. These products and services have proved effective and easy to manage. The Sophos anti-virus software is much better at ensuring all systems are always more up to date than the previous solution the Society employed. Even if individual users or workstations have missed an update this is made clear and corrected straight away.
The MessageLabs service has also been excellent, says Richardson. This is a hosted service that scans emails for viruses and malware before they are sent to the company's mail box. Richardson was very keen on having emails checked in this way and he has not been disappointed by the service provided. “All our emails are hacked and scanned, and content checked and everything, before they even get to us. That's very attractive from a risk and control point of view, and from a management and IT perspective”, he says.
The Cumberland has experienced no issues whatsoever with external email since the service was switched on; i also deals with unwanted emails. “MessageLabs just cleans it all up and Spam is just not a problem for us anymore”, says Richardson. Even if messages have been filtered out that should really have gone through, they are mmade available in a special mailbox so the Society's users can examine these for lost emails. The configuration can then be changed to ensure that emails from genuine sources are allowed.
What partnership means
With sound security in place, the Cumberland has been able to make full use of the Internet and email for both internal and external communications with complete peace of mind. Use of digital communications has grown immeasurably, says Richardson. “When we started we had about 100 Internet and external email users and we now have around 300.”
The benefits to the business have been considerable. “It's greatly improved our efficiency because we can get emails in straight away - people used to have to go to the PC or it would have to be printed and delivered to a person's intray. They now get delivered direct and you can respond to it straight away. It's certainly improved general communications with our partners. We've deployed more web applications into the branches and we've got more things planned.”
For example, says Richardson, the Building Society staff can now use on-line valuation sites to get quick estimates of property values. Under the right circumstances - where for example only half the value of a property is being requested - this can give the Society enough information to proceed without incurring the time and cost of a formal property valuation.
Servo did a great job in understanding what was needed, putting together a carefully thought-out proposal and delivering exactly what was required. Richardson has the highest regard for the company and its staff. “I do not use this word very often, but I will use it with Servo - they have been a partner of ours for some time and they do understand what partnership means.”
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