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Reflecting on the 2025 BSA Conference - Modernising the Mutual

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Having returned from the BSA Conference 2025, it was clear that building societies are navigating a critical juncture - balancing their relationship-led service models while addressing the urgent need to modernise outdated systems and improve operational efficiency. Given the current geopolitical climate, and the increasing pace of innovation, developing a strategy that not only solves immediate challenges, but offers sufficient scope to tackle future issues, can often seem like a moving target.

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Exponential-e & Atlas Hotels Case Study

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About Atlas Hotels

Atlas Hotels is the largest European franchise of Holiday Inn Express, operating 60 hotels across key business and leisure destinations in the UK, and one in Dresden, Germany. With over 20 years' experience in the hospitality sector, Atlas Hotels manages a diverse portfolio of 7,555 hotel rooms, providing business and leisure travellers with unparalleled service and comfort.
The Challenge

Atlas' guests expect the highest quality internet connectivity in their rooms, particularly business travellers who depend on access to critical online services. This placed considerable demands on the resilience of their network and the available bandwidth, with little consistency in the available speeds at different sites.

At the same time, as Atlas' continued its expansion into new locations, seamless cross-site communication and collaboration between staff had become an essential part of its day-to-day operations. However, the Property Management System (PMS) still utilised on-site legacy servers, which increasingly limited the performance and availability of this critical platform, leading to multiple challenges around resource management and operational efficiency.

Atlas Hotels therefore sought to consolidate the disparate network solutions across its various sites under a single supplier. The aim was a unified, 'always-on' infrastructure that would provide seamless, secure, and highly available connectivity for both staff and guests, helping maintain the world-class service quality on which Atlas had built its reputation.

In addition to this foundational connectivity, the digital transformation initiative would also involve a full transition to a modern Cloud environment that would optimise the performance and availability of the PMS, while enhancing scalability and cost control as Atlas continued to expand its portfolio of sites and the range of services it offered its guests.

The Solution

Having a single supplier for a project of this scale is so important. The team at Exponential-e weren't just on hand throughout each phase, ensuring we were able to hit our targets on time and to budget, but they have always been just a call away if we have any concerns. They have also offered invaluable input into ways we can further optimise our guest experience and broaden our range of services.

Ben Otton, IT Manager, Atlas Hotel

Once the project specifications had been defined and agreed upon, Exponential-e worked closely with Atlas Hotels' IT teams at both the head office and various hotel locations across the UK, under the direction of a dedicated Exponential-e project manager, ensuring that their specific needs were met at every stage of the implementation.

The first phase of the project focused on the deployment of highly resilient, 1Gb connectivity across all 60 Atlas Hotels locations, leveraging Exponential-e's own enterprise-class network to ensure consistent quality and availability for all guests and staff, with built-in redundancy to ensure 24/7 availability and minimal downtime. This resulted in double the available internet speeds at multiple sites, particularly those still reliant on legacy connectivity.

The second phase focused on migrating the legacy on-site infrastructure to a secure, highly available private Cloud, configured with end-to-end encryption and advanced firewall protection to guarantee the integrity of guests' data. By moving virtualised servers and workloads into this new environment, the resulting improvements in performance, scalability, and the availability of critical systems – particularly the central PMS – allowed for more efficient resource management, freeing staff to focus on the guest experience.

The entire migration process was completed in six months, with minimal disruption to Atlas' day-to-day operations. For additional levels of resilience, a robust disaster recovery plan was put in place, ensuring business continuity would always be maintained in the event of a system failure or data loss.

The partnership between Exponential-e and Atlas Hotels continues to evolve, with plans already in place to further enhance the guest experience through the application of new technologies. This includes implementing the next generation of interconnected meeting and event spaces at all 60 sites, incorporating advanced AV systems, platforms for simplified booking, and high-performance video conferencing.

With this successful transformation, Atlas Hotels now has a robust, high-performance, and secure digital foundation in place, which will support their ongoing growth and operational excellence. As more locations are added to the Atlas portfolio, Exponential-e will continue to expand and optimise the network infrastructure, ensuring all guests and staff continue to enjoy the highest quality connectivity and new opportunities for improvement can be identified and acted upon.

Solution Benefits

  • Highly resilient 1Gb connectivity available for staff and guests at all 60 Atlas sites across the UK and beyond, encompassing 7,555 hotel rooms

  • Improved communication and collaboration between dispersed staff, with optimal performance and availability for the central PMS

  • A seamless migration to a highly secure private Cloud environment, with in-built redundancy and robust disaster recovery systems minimising the risk of downtime

  • Effortless scalability and potential for future upgrades, supporting Atlas Hotels' ongoing growth and the adoption of emerging technologies
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NCSC warns of IT helpdesk impersonation trick being used by ransomware gangs after UK retailers attacked

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The UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned the IT helpdesks of retailers to be on their guard against bogus support calls they might receive from hackers pretending to be staff locked out of their accounts.

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Streamlined management, unparalleled protection: How SASE is ushering in the third generation of network security

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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.

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Legal firms who do not embrace cloud technology solutions and leading-edge cyber security will risk their reputations in the months ahead

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In light of numerous dramatic shifts in the geopolitical landscape in recent months, this blog has reiterated the need for organisations across all sectors to strengthen and - if necessary - reconsider their cyber security postures, in order to prepare for the anticipated attacks by global bad actors. The legal sector is no exception, particularly as these attacks are anticipated to specifically target the most high-value data.

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Why Legal firms are the natural home of hybrid Cloud infrastructure

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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.

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Offering clients the ultimate peace of mind – a new approach to security and remediation for legal firms

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Although the sector as a whole has traditionally been comparatively wary of the ever-increasing pace of technology, legal services are increasingly data driven, with an abundance of AI-related discussion emerging within legal technology circles. The core Document Management Systems (DMS) and Practice Management Systems (PMS) remain the centre of focus for how and where to deploy a variety of rapidly maturing SaaS platforms, or dedicated, highly customised suites.

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The new breed of seamless, secure cashflow emerges: Ensuring your organisation is prepared for the payments revolution

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We make payments, large and small, every day of our lives. From paying our bills and making payments to friends online, to the large-scale bank transfers that help business flow. Money changes hands through a wider range of channels and platforms than ever before, to the extent the days of cash-in-hand being the default payment model are a fading memory for many of us. The convenience and flexibility can't be disputed, but as with any emerging technology, the new flows of data must be given careful consideration, ensuring businesses and customers alike can rest assured that their money will remain secure throughout every stage of every transaction.
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The Hidden Barrier to Digital Transformation that Insurers must be Ready to Overcome

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Digital transformation continues to pick up pace across the financial sector. However, in spite of the potential benefits on offer, many insurance firms continue to lag behind their peers in terms of their overall digital maturity. 

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Preparing for DORA: What do these new regulations mean for finance and insurance firms?

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When it comes to insurance and financial services, the ability to offer clients peace of mind is the key to ensuring the sector's continued longevity. Cyberattacks are evolving in frequency and sophistication, with criminals selecting progressively more ambitious targets, and even minor IT outages, whether they're caused by human error or 'acts of God', will have a serious effect on firms' operations, negatively affecting both profitability and brand reputation. With this in mind, firms must reconsider the way they approach operational resilience, particularly regarding the way access rights for critical systems and data are managed.
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Balancing safety, security, and unforgettable welcomes in the Pub of the Future

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Like many longstanding institutions, Britain's world-renowned pubs are undergoing their own digital transformation journey, utilising leading-edge technologies to offer truly personalised experiences to patrons of all ages and backgrounds - from longstanding regulars visiting for their usual pint, to families looking for a meal, and young professionals working on the go. It's an exciting time for the sector as a whole, but at the same time, the drive for modernisation must not come at the expense of patrons' safety and enjoyment.

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UK Government proposes ransomware payment ban for public sector

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The UK government has proposed extending its ban on ransomware payments to cover the entire public sector in an attempt to deter cybercriminal attacks and protect taxpayers.

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Talking, listening, optimising: rethinking the customer journey in the new era of AI

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In the contact centre, the customer journey is everything. Every potential point of interaction must be carefully considered, with systems and processes established to maximise the chances of a fast, satisfactory resolution.
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The importance of knowing your legacy systems

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The level of legacy debt varies widely across the NHS and a recent report from the Department of Science Technology and Innovation (DSIT) has revealed that legacy technology can range from as little as 10 to as much as 60-70%. This reliance on outdated systems presents a significant cyber security challenge, heightened by the fact that 15% of surveyed organisations could not estimate the size of their legacy estate. The report also highlights that these systems are high-risk, prone to security vulnerabilities, lack support, and subject to operational failures.

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£3 million fine for healthcare MSP with sloppy security after it was hit by ransomware attack

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A UK firm has been hit by a £3.07 million fine after being hit by a ransomware attack that exposed sensitive data related to almost 80,000 people, and disrupted NHS services.

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Everything you need to know about Microsoft’s recently announced pricing updates

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As part of an ongoing effort to offer greater consistency and transparency across their full range of solutions, Microsoft have recently announced several pricing updates.
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Always on, always available, and always secure: Rethinking IT at the edge

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As organisations generate, manage, and store more data than ever before, it's not hard to see why the ongoing march of Cloud transformation shows no signs of slowing down. But for all the Cloud's advantages in terms of flexibility, scalability, and cost control, it is not suitable for every application.
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Leveraging pioneering SASE technology with Gartner’s 2024 Magic Quadrant™ Leader, Cato Networks

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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.

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IT providers come of age, as trusted partners for companies across the UK

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COVID-19 has forced organisations across the UK to re-evaluate virtually every aspect of how they operate, from policies regarding remote working, to the security of their data. There's no doubt that the IT landscape has been fundamentally transformed by these challenges, as new innovations have been unveiled and deployed at an unprecedented pace. None of this could have been achieved without businesses and IT providers working hand-in-hand to meet the challenges presented by the pandemic.
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A new model for technology partnerships in the Hospitality & Leisure sector

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The Hospitality & Leisure sector is inherently people-focused, with the personal touch making all the difference to guests' experiences. But, as we have already discussed on this blog, the multiple lockdowns in response to COVID-19 have forced to the entire sector to adopt new ways of engaging with guests, utilising next-gen smart technology to deliver truly bespoke experiences and streamlined access to a wide range of services.
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