At Microbyte, we pride ourselves on providing IT support and solutions that work harmoniously with the business. Every business requires a new approach based on its existing systems and future goals. We often work with companies that rely on us not only for immediate support but also for long-term planning.
Microbyte is currently working with Wasted Talent as it brings print media into a new age. With a range of different systems brought under a single roof via acquisitions, the company required a bespoke set of solutions that would allow creativity to take centre stage.
The Situation
As with many companies within the media industry, Wasted Talent has become an overwhelming network of systems, programs, and applications forged by company acquisitions and the growing number of creative platforms.
With many employees requiring access to platforms, networks, and data from the office and at home, the company needed an overhaul that would allow easy access for everyone while remaining safe and secure. The company needed to improve its existing systems and streamline processes without disrupting current deadlines or frustrating staff lacking IT skills.
We aimed to transform their IT systems into an asset enabling and supporting their creative functions in place of the incumbent infrastructure.
Our Support
Working with a creative media company presents unique challenges which require flexible and equally innovative solutions. With creativity and big plans at the forefront of the business’s philosophy, we needed to work to streamline its complex IT structure, ensuring their systems supported their operations rather than restricting them.
Providing ongoing support and working to ensure that every member of every department had access to large data files, overlapping CRM and creative networks, as well as making daily logins as easy as possible, was a top priority.
Here’s a look at how Microbyte helped Wasted Talent take its business to the next level.
Integration
One of the most crucial elements of our IT support package for Wasted Talent involved examining and refining the integration of various acquired software. Within the creative printing industry, managing costs is crucial, and as a result, software and platforms vary from company to company and sometimes from department to department, depending on budgets.
As a result, many companies end up with a tangled web of interconnected systems that are often duplicated, unable to communicate internally, or obsolete. Our experts worked alongside an internal team to analyse and inspect the existing infrastructure and update it where necessary.
By improving the core systems and connections, we were able to create an IT structure that can grow and support the company as it goes from strength to strength.
IT Roadmap and daily support
As is common within the creative industry, Wasted Talent employs people who push the boundaries of what is possible and what the future could become. As such, their IT is often trying to catch up with their ideas. Part of our role involved providing daily troubleshooting to minimise disruption and creating future IT plans.
We implemented a Professional Services Automation (PSA) tool allowing us and the internal IT departments to record and assess every support element across the entire business structure. This includes everything from where physical assets are located, onboarding processes, supply chains, security risks, user management, and more. This then allowed us to remain focused on what is essential for the business and guarantee that the IT supports the company’s operations instead of limiting them.
In short, we needed to plan for technology to keep up with their increasingly creative dreams!
Single sign-on and user management
Having acquired multiple legacy systems and platforms during company mergers, many employees were using multiple accounts and sign-in details, resulting in inconsistencies and daily frustration. Furthermore, user management had become unmanageable, with employees across various brands and departments needing access to a wide variety of applications.
We worked with employees to better understand what would make their lives easier, resulting in implementing a single sign-on G Suite. The result was that all employees could access their respective platforms quickly and easily, saving time and ensuring that even people with limited technological expertise could get the most out of their software.
By implementing these processes, we also enabled them to take back control regarding access and security. The cloud-based G Suite means the company can grant and deny access, ensuring that data is protected, but employees can always access files both in the office and remotely.
Refined data storage
Like many media and creative companies, Wasted Talent relies on large data files every day. From videos and marketing material to high-quality images for printing and customer database information, employees at every level of the business need to send and receive large files without security being compromised.
We worked with the company to ensure files were being stored on a secure server that was easy to access. This included facilitating cloud-based migration, optimizing data services, and ensuring that transfers could be made securely.
Final thoughts
Our ongoing work with Wasted Talent has showcased Microbyte’s ability to take complex and confusing legacy systems and create a simple, effective IT structure that works for the business. Working alongside staff from every area of the company allowed us to understand better how their IT could work for them and has resulted in both cost and time savings.
As we continue to implement our plans, we look forward to the challenges to come when trying to make IT keep up with the dreams and ambitions of such a creative company!
Need support for your internal IT team?
A bespoke IT solution could be the answer for businesses looking to transform outdated and frustrating inherited IT systems into a streamlined infrastructure that supports and enables them to grow. Working with Wasted Talent, we were able to gain an understanding of what made the business unique and adapt our support to fit the requirements.
If you would like to discuss setting up a bespoke IT support package for your business, get in touch with one of our experts today.
