M365 as a Catalyst for Transformation in the Insurance Sector

Spun out from a well-known insurance brand in the UK, our customer is a new insurance firm that has a number of high-value policies, managed by 20 exec-level employees.

As a new business, they needed to build a resilient IT infrastructure that offered the same high level of governance they were used to, while still allowing the agility a modern organisation needs to thrive.

The Challenge

The shift to remote working was a challenge for most businesses back in 2020. As a newly formed organisation, our customer had the added complexity of building a new cloud platform and shifting away from established processes and architecture. With digital assets, applications and workloads residing on-premise, they needed an agile cloud environment that gave their remote workers everything they needed today, while also factoring in future growth and innovation.

Operating in a highly regulated sector, governance and security were key concerns. The platform needed to deliver secure data processing and fortify defences across the entire environment and at the network edge. As a new business, they needed to implement end-to-end IT and rapidly elevate their security posture, giving them a solution that would put them at the forefront of their industry.

Finally, they needed an outsourced managed service desk to support their day-to-day team, as they didn’t have any IT people. The goal was to reduce downtime, manage users and respond to service issues quickly, without the need to hire a full-time IT manager.

The Solution

We won the contract based on our rapid response and technical capability. As an ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials accredited supplier, our security specialists are well versed in next-generation security, and how to navigate the regulations that could impact our customers’ decision making and overall approach.

From discovery to execution, our transparent approach and can-do attitude enabled the customer to achieve its goals within aggressive timescales.

Discovery – A roadmap for transformation and security maturity

Our project team and cloud architects started with a consulting exercise, defining the objectives, controls, project sponsors, timelines and resources. With a clear project scope, we evaluated the legacy infrastructure and application dependencies, building a holistic view of the environment. We worked closely with the customer to build a transformation roadmap underpinned by a resilient security strategy.

Desktop and end-user software

The firm needed a way to quickly enable remote working and deploy new users. Our Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solution provided an agile and secure alternative to traditional desktop computing by hosting all desktops remotely from within a data centre.

We delivered the configuration and day-to-day management of the desktop operating system and application stack, allowing Soteria to maintain a lean team. Through Microsoft Intune, we can quickly deploy additional end-users with all the security, compliance and control requirements baked in.

Microsoft 365 migration

We migrated all 20 users from the existing company’s Microsoft 365 platform to a new environment. Although M365 has built-in migration tools, it’s more complex and not as efficient when transferring from a large M365 Exchange to a smaller subset of users. Working closely with the customer’s technical consultant, we agreed on a migration strategy that covered all bases, including Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint, as well as all admin roles, security settings and compliance profiles.

Rehosting and replatforming applications

With a variety of legacy applications and business-critical data residing in outdated financial services systems, the firm also needed a secure platform to rehost its infrastructure.

The Ekco Cloud offered the customer a personalised platform that delivered scalability and agility. Our technical team migrated the entire data estate and several modelling applications to our data centres. The highly customisable platform meant we could implement resilient security measures to protect data both in transit and at rest.

An outsourced IT team

Ekco now acts as the customer’s outsourced IT function. We proactively manage all hardware, software and licensing so that the customer can focus on strategic operations rather than day-to-day IT. Our local service desk acts as a single point of contact for all employees, plus first to third-line support for IT issues, so that nothing stands in the way of productivity.

Benefits

One of the key reasons the customer broke out from the larger entity was their desire to create an environment that facilitates expansion and growth while retaining a number of key roles. Working with us, they achieved this and now have:

A secure, reliable IT infrastructure that will scale easily and meet their growth
More time to focus on core business
An efficient, high-performance architecture
Expertise and hands-on support to manage their infrastructure
A robust security posture that meets regulatory standards
Controls and policies to govern regulatory compliance
A flexible end-to-end remote working solution.