We've been hearing about the impending demise of the high street for years now, ever since online shopping and click-and-collect established themselves as part of our day-to-day lives. And yet, while brick-and-mortar retail has certainly been through a great many challenges and upheavals, it doesn't show any sign of going away quite yet. Rather than simply expecting customers to be content with previous generations' shopping experiences, the sector has demonstrated considerable ingenuity by taking full advantage of emerging technologies to deliver the kind of personalisation that would previously have been the sole preserve of online platforms.
Across the Hospitality & Leisure sector, from pubs to five-star hotels - guests' expectations have evolved in ways that would have been impossible to imagine just a decade ago.
High-performance connectivity and seamless Cloud migration delivers the foundation for world-class legal services.
About TWM Solicitors
The Challenge
With staff operating out of multiple dispersed offices, TWM required high-performance connectivity between all sites, enabling seamless, highly secure collaboration between teams. Dissatisfied with the quality delivered by their incumbent provider, TWM's IT team engaged Exponential-e as their new connectivity partner, beginning with a complete revamp of the WAN.
The Solution
To achieve a smooth transition to the new network, with zero operational disruption, Exponential-e and TWM deployed a 'shadow' WAN that would ensure connections would remain available to all staff while the migration was completed over the course of six weeks. A key priority for the new network was achieving complete consistency for all offices - a significant challenge given the diverse nature of TWM's premises, which ranged from modern offices to a Victorian building and a sixteenth-century farmhouse. Close collaboration between teams at Exponential-e and TWM, combined with rigorous testing of the new infrastructure before the go-live date, ensured this was achieved across all sites, delivering an immediate return on the initial investment.
The close partnership established throughout this initial deployment was developed further when Exponential-e took over the management of the network's switches, allowing TWM's own IT team to refocus their attention on other business-critical projects.
The partnership entered its second stage when TWM made the decision to migrate from its legacy ISDN-based telephony to a Cloud-based platform, for which Exponential-e provided the foundation in the form of a dedicated VLAN, with its own gateway and firewall, which involved segmenting the existing network and switches, ensuring that that TWM's familiar quality of service would not be compromised.
With the new network infrastructure now established as the foundation, the decision was made to streamline and optimise TWM's VDI environment by migrating to Azure Virtual Desktop, minimising any jitter and ensuring staff at all their offices would enjoy a consistently seamless experience, particularly when accessing the Practice Management System (PMS). Beyond the immediate improvements in terms of performance and availability, this would serve as the foundation for a phased migration from on-premises servers to highly scalable, Cloud-based infrastructure.
These migrations were conducted on a site-by-site basis, with Exponential-e providing hands-on support throughout, ensuring all staff were properly trained in the new systems and able to make full use of their capabilities as quickly as possible. This included roundtable functions around Cloud transformation and cyber security, along with access to pre-sales personnel's specialist knowledge.
Teams from TWM and Exponential-e continue to work closely together in this regard, migrating more legacy on-premises systems into the Cloud, with the end goal being a completely centralised infrastructure that will provide the IT team with full control and visibility at all times, ensuring any potential issues can be proactively identified and resolved, and new teams and offices effortlessly onboarded.
Beyond the quality of the underlying connections, the success of this project has really hinged on the team at Exponential-e's willingness to work closely with us throughout the design of the new infrastructure, and throughout every stage of its deployment. We've got a strong foundation to build on now, and the next phases are already yielding good things.
Alan Barrett, Head of IT, TWM Solicitors.
Solution Benefits
- A seamless migration to a new, high-performance WAN, delivering consistent networking quality across a range of diverse sites.
- High-quality, Cloud-based telephony, powered by a dedicated VLAN, optimising cross-site communication and collaboration.
- Providing the interconnection between Exponential-e's WAN and Azure through an ExpressRoute link, supporting Cloud migration objectives.
- An intelligent, phased migration process, avoiding any disruption while maintaining the highest standards of security and compliance.
- Expert support and consultation from a dedicated account team and a range of technical specialists.
About the Networked Fire Services Partnership (NFSP)
The Challenge
With fire and emergency services, any downtime could cost lives, which means the quality of our underlying network and– in turn – the performance and availability of key platforms are top priorities for us.
Neil McKeever, NFSP Technical Lead
The NFSP utilises a Control and Dispatch (CAD) system to interlink its four control rooms, ensuring seamless, secure flows of data in order to maximise ease of communication and, in turn, deployment times. This system is constantly evolving to better serve citizens across the country and – ultimately – save lives.
In order to optimise the performance of the newest iteration of the CAD platform, a decision was made to split off the NFSP's underling network, utilising the existing network for day-to-day operations, while deploying a new, fully dedicated network for CAD applications.
Following a competitive tender process, the Exponential-e Group's 20-year pedigree in the design and delivery of critical infrastructure,
their experts' personal experience within a range of emergency services, and the inherent resilience of their self-owned, enterprise-class network made them a clear standout, and so they were selected as the NFSP's new networking partner, providing RO2 connectivity between the NFSP's control rooms, back-up control rooms, and the NEC data centres in which the new iteration of their CAD platform would be hosted.
Exponential-e's specialists immediately began working closely with the NFSP's own teams to establish the new network specifications and plan for a successful rollout of the new platform, while also preparing for the impending launch of the new Emergency Services Network (ESN).
The Solution
Thanks to Exponential-e's continued support, we're now in a good position for the upcoming launch of the ESN, which will open the door to further enhancements in the future.
Neil McKeever, NFSP Technical Lead
It was decided that the existing network would remain in place throughout the deployment of the new one, with the current CAD platform continuing to run on it. This would not only ensure any downtime could be completely avoided – an absolute necessity for a project of this nature – but also allow for a more intelligent, phased deployment process for the new platform, with ample scope to sandboxing, testing, and in-built redundancy until it was ready for a full-scale deployment, with the legacy platform phased out completely.
A dedicated account team took full responsibility for the design and the delivery of this new network, working with existing infrastructure where appropriate, and deploying completely new fibre where it was required. The project plan was designed so the NFSP could begin making use of individual connections as soon as they became available, in parallel with ongoing testing and deployment processes, ensuring the desired benefits could be realised as soon as possible.
This involved the most rigorous standards of performance and availability, in order to support real-time communications between the NFSP's control rooms, their colleagues, and all citizens who would need to make contact for any reason. Exponential-e's role in the Government's ESN project is critical here, ensuring the NFSP will be able to begin making use of this UK-wide network's capabilities as soon as it launches, further enhancing communication, collaboration, and responsiveness for frontline emergency service workers across the country.
Exponential-e are set to continue working with the NFSP in the years ahead, ensuring the underlying network continues to support the seamless delivery of fire and emergency services, maximising the number of lives saved.
Solution Benefits
- Highly resilient, highly secure R02 connectivity between four control rooms, their back-ups, and NEC data environments, optimising the performance and availability of a key control and command platform
- Hands-on consultation and support from a dedicated team of networking experts with years of hands-on experience across the emergency services
- A phased deployment process, managed by a dedicated account team, minimising operational disruption and maximising time-to-value
- Hands-on support from the only privately-owned British company involved in the UK Government's ESN project
The security of enterprise networks is a critical priority for all organisations across the public and private sectors, as they are forced to contend with an increasingly turbulent cyber threat landscape. As a result, network teams increasingly find their roles overlap with their organisations' cyber security strategies, with numerous siloed elements now converging.
Although digital transformation amongst Legal firms has typically been comparatively slow compared to other sectors, the journey has picked up speed over the course of the last decade.
Whatever sector you operate in and whatever your long-term business goals, your network is the foundation of your future success. With the distributed workforce now firmly established and customer interactions taking place over an evolving range of channels, business is now truly interconnected, with seamless, secure dataflows its lifeblood.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is rapidly establishing itself as the solution of choice for the next generation of enterprise networks, where optimal control, visibility, and scalability are essential. In the first quarter of 2024 alone, the SASE market experienced a 23% surge, as more and more organisations began taking advantage of its capabilities.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) represents an elegant convergence of network and security technologies as a single, end-to-end solution, perfectly suited to the modern distributed workforce and the increasingly dynamic nature of corporate networks. As a growing number of organisations are discovering, SASE has the potential to completely transform the way we design, deploy, manage, and scale corporate networks. Indeed, 60% of IT leaders are ready to fully embrace SASE by 2025*.
Despite the numerous interconnected elements now involved in effective digital transformation, the network remains the foundation of everything, ensuring any investment in new technologies delivers the best possible ROI, and that teams at all levels are empowered to deliver their very best, 24 / 7. As such, the digital transformation journey must always begin with a full network transformation.
According to the latest PwC report, about 14 shops are closing every day in the UK as the high street faces one of its toughest seasons in five years. It’s no secret that the convenience of online shopping has been challenging retailers for some time now. With the world of technology ever changing, retailers need to adapt in order to keep up with both their immediate competitors and the wider industry.
Global broadcasts place incredible demands on infrastructure, which must offer the performance and resilience required to accommodate the anticipated spikes in viewership. Exponential-e has worked closely with a number of world leaders across the broadcasting and media sector, providing fully integrated solutions that ensure their connectivity is of the very highest quality, freeing their own teams to focus on the broadcast itself, safe in the knowledge that they can completely depend on their technological foundation, no matter how many viewers around the world tune in.
It's well-established that security is an essential part of all infrastructure. With data protection more of a concern for customers and end users than ever - particularly in light of regulations like the Cloud Act and GDPR - it's vital that organisations demonstrate a clear commitment to the security of their networks, Cloud applications and physical devices.
No matter how sure you are that your network is secure, you may still be at risk of cyberattacks. It's no exaggeration Cybercriminals are constantly working to stay one step ahead of organisations and security professionals, exploiting any vulnerability they can in even the most sophisticated systems.
Like many fixtures of our lives, Britain's pubs were heavily impacted by COVID-19, with their familiar patrons unable to come in for a post-work drink, or meet with friends at the weekend. But while it was undoubtedly a difficult period for the industry as a whole, this great British institution did as it has always done, and adapted to suit its patrons' evolving requirements.
The Retail sector is more diverse, dynamic, and rapidly changing than any other time in its history. This not only encompasses the way customers make their purchases – with online shopping, click-and-collect, and in-person shopping all converging to offer true, end-to-end experiences – but also the way retailers open and operate new sites. Whether this means trendy pop-up shops, kiosks at other brands' locations, or booths at events, retailers from up-and-coming start-ups to global leaders are no longer relying on fixed high-street locations to welcome their customers and put their wares on display, instead making sure they are present wherever their ideal customers are, and fully prepared to offer a world-class experience that builds brand recognition and loyalty.
With fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour, changing economic conditions, and a rapidly evolving regulatory environment, it's a challenging but exciting time for the UK's retail sector, and technology has a key role to play. In particular, advances in IT and networking solutions are empowering retailers to enhance their operational efficiency, improve the customer experience, and retain their competitive edge in an increasingly online and interconnected world.