Eclipse Procurement

Eclipse Procurement is a consultancy specialising in procurement and supply chain management for the construction industry in both the public and private sector. Their in-house consultants operate across the UK and are highly experienced, with a proven track record and expertise in procurement and supply chain management within major contracting organisations, developers, and built asset consultants, etc.

Challenge

Eclipse’s team of consultants work in a variety of locations, whether that’s at home, at client sites, or at their two offices using their own preferred devices. Whatever location they need to work from, their IT solutions need to be efficient, consistent, and importantly all email communications and business data need to be secure.

Eclipse was already using cloud services to allow them to operate flexibly as they needed to. However, they weren’t sure if they had the best solutions, value for money, or data security that they felt they needed. Additionally, they didn’t have confidence that their previous supplier was the right fit to make the changes they wanted.

Fran Green, Executive Assistant at Eclipse Procurement, said, “Business IT can be a minefield and you can feel vulnerable when you’re not sure you are using the right solutions.” Fran was recommended to find a Managed Service Provider, a partner who could get to know Eclipse and understand how they need to work and therefore have confidence in putting the right solutions in place.

That’s when she got in touch with Beaming.

Solution

After joint conversations and research to understand how Eclipse operate, Beaming developed a plan:

• Support for their cloud services was consolidated and Microsoft 365 administration taken over by Beaming.
• Data was migrated to SharePoint, moving everything to the Microsoft platform from Dropbox. This allowed a review of access control, file structures, security, and data policies, standardising requirements ready for growth.
• Security was updated with a move from Sophos to Microsoft Defender with added features such as Multi-Factor Authentication.
• Hosting of their domain name was taken over as part of moving the cloud licenses and later the hosting of the website, meaning they have one supplier who can manage everything.
• Onboarding of new employees will be simple and support new consultants to hit the ground running.

Once the plan had been agreed, Beaming set to ensure migration was as smooth as possible. Project ownership was taken by one member of the technical team, providing Fran with one point of contact and a familiar voice to answer any questions.

Migration was seamless where possible, and if issues did arise, Beaming dealt with these as necessary, ensuring no disruption to Eclipse’s consultants, so they could always continue supporting their own clients.

Fran said, “It has been a breath of fresh air dealing with Beaming, they are knowledgeable, friendly, and professional.”

Result

Eclipse is confident they have chosen a provider who can support them with growth in business. As Beaming have taken the time to understand their business, they know when future technology updates are needed, they will be recommended the best solutions available.

Day-to-day, their data is held all in one place, easy to access, and they understand what they are paying for. They trust Beaming to keep things running in the background so they can focus on their own work.

Even when issues did arise, such as almost losing their website, Beaming took control and ensured they got what they needed to get it back online and provided a short-term solution in the meantime.

The consultants haven’t needed to call on them with anything yet, but the Beaming helpdesk is there for support when they need it.

The business no longer feels vulnerable. Everyone is able to get on with their work wherever they are and confident that the systems are in place and being looked after in the background. And Fran can “relax knowing Beaming is in control.”