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Case Study - EEA
Intercept delivers high-performance virtualisation and communications solutions to a variety of clients – from small businesses to large enterprises, across multiple sectors.
 

Not a Cloudy Day Saving £150K

Reduced costs, carbon and risk for EEA Fund Managers

The Customer
Intercept's onlinedesktop™ subscription cloud based computing solution provides reductions in cost, carbon footprint and risks for EEA Fund Management. EEA Fund Management (EEAFM) was founded in August 2003 by Simon Shaw to manage UK equity portfolios and energy and environmental assets. The company has over $1.8 billion of assets under management.
The Challenge
When EEAFM had to move from their previous office location in Bishopsgate, London, Chief Financial Officer Hiren Patel had the responsibility of determining whether to outsource their IT requirements or to hire their own staff. As the previous office location had provided all back office functions, from IT to payroll and HR, Hiren conducted an analysis of the best solution for his IT provision. He had to weigh up the benefits of having an in-house IT team versus outsourcing. As no-one within the organisation had IT skills, Hiren was concerned that in-house IT would mean hiring a minimum of 2 IT professionals and purchasing all the relevant hardware and software; all of which would be extremely expensive.

The results of the investigation concluded that it would cost in the region of £250,000 to provide IT services to the company. However, as IT was absolutely critical to the success of the organisation, EEAFM decided that outsourcing would provide a better service at a lower cost.

Hiren then embarked on a due diligence looking at outsourcing providers. The previous office location recommended a couple of the well known providers to engage with. However, they were very inflexible in their approach, particularly with the timescales needed. EEAFM had just 3 months to move office and get his new IT infrastructure up and running. This included moving all of the employee profiles, data and application access from the incumbent provider. All the larger generalist IT outsourcers couldn’t commit to these timescales, with one suggesting a ridiculous premium in order to meet these requirements.
Solution
Hiren started to engage with Intercept. Hiren stated “Their can-do attitude was a totally refreshing change, especially in the charismatic and flexible way in which they dealt with us. ”During the discussions, Hiren was hugely impressed with the way Intercept were willing, and able to provide a bespoke, tailored solution that would aid the business.

“In particular, it was a relief to find a company that not only understood our IT requirements but also understood our business. Intercept was confident in their service offering, but still went the extra mile and conducted in depth testing to ensure our bespoke applications worked, I am still amazed that TAS Books works in a Citrix environment!” he continued.

Intercept also went above and beyond the call of duty. To ensure EEAFM moved into their offices with all of their services up and running prior to the Christmas deadline, Intercept even organized all the new cabling and ensured the telephone and data lines were installed and working, all ready to access the onlinedesktop™ service. “Definitely above and beyond the call of duty”, applauds Hiren.

EEAFM has been growing globally with new offices in the UK and abroad including; Beijing, the Cayman Islands, Washington, Ireland and Rio de Janeiro. Intercept have enabled this growth by providing the same level of IT services in these remote regions as the headquarters staff have in London. “Intercept continue to adapt and cater for all our situations, other companies we initially spoke with were way too rigid in their attitude and service,” continues Hiren.
The Benefits
EEFM have calculated that the group is saving over £150,000 per year by outsourcing to Intercept's cloud computing service onlinedesktop™. “If we had to hire our own IT people, first of all there is an inherent risk of relying on two individuals to run such a critical part of our business and secondly the cost of buying hardware and software is not a one time cost; the systems need to be regularly updated. As we are not technology experts, we could be held to ransom!” he said. “Moreover, Intercept have become our trusted advisors - they continuously look to provide added value for our business and they are a complete pleasure to deal with.”

Hiren continued, “As an example of their value-add, when we expanded into Beijing we were told that we needed a dedicated voice and data line which was hugely expensive. Intercept advised that for a fraction of the cost, they could provide the appropriate equipment to speed-up transfer rates and thus reduce our costs even further.”

A subtle but important aspect of dealing with Intercept is the friendliness of the staff, “I am amazed at how friendly and accommodating the Intercept team are. Every single one of them knows our names and they are always so helpful. No one knew our names at our previous incumbent IT provider and it makes such a difference when you are dealing with people that actually care about you as individuals as well as customers.”

A further business benefit of using Intercept’s online cloud services is that the firm is able to reduce its environmental impact by lowering their carbon footprint. “Outsourcing not only provides economies of scale, but by consolidating the IT requirements of, say, 30 different companies into one data centre you can significantly reduce the power and cooling consumption and thus a companies’ carbon footprint.”

 


 

KEY HIGHLIGHTS
INDUSTRY: FINANCIAL SERVICES
 
I am amazed at how friendly and accommodating the Intercept team are. The flexibility of Intercept’s onlinedesktop™ solution means operating in a remote part of South America is just as efficient and easy as if I’m in the London office.
 
Hiren Patel
Chief Financial Officer
EEA Fund Management
http://www.eeafm.com
 
 
Challenges

HQ relocation with tight deadlines
Completely new IT infrastructure and back office systems
Flexible cost-effective IT outsourcing requirements
New offices in Beijing, Cayman Islands, Washington, Ireland and Rio de Janeiro.
Solution

Intercept hosted onlinedesktop™
Hosted Microsoft Office and Outlook applications
Specialist applications support for Bloomberg, TAS Books, PRO Quotes and Fund accounting software
Integration with bespoke database application


Benefits

Total savings in excess of £150K per year
Reduction in travel, local IT resources and energy costs
Flexibility and friendliness of the whole Intercept team
EEAFM found an IT partner that would go the extra mile