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Microsoft 365

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Your complete productivity solution

We are Microsoft 365 experts, providing you with the tools you need

Microsoft 365 provides your business with the tools it needs to be productive and collaborate effectively. It includes office apps (Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more) along with Teams, Outlook, file storage and much more. All ran on a subscription model and hosted in the cloud so that you can easily add or remove users and access your files and apps from anywhere on any device.
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Group IT Strategy overlay - String Systems

Devising the best Microsoft 365 strategy for your business

01

Assess Business Needs and Goals

We start by evaluating your business requirements and goals, to identify key areas where Microsoft 365 can add value, such as enhancing collaboration, improving productivity, increasing security, or streamlining communication. We take into consideration factors such as the size of your organisation, industry-specific regulations, remote work needs, and scalability requirements. This evaluation lays the foundation for tailoring your Microsoft 365 strategy to meet your specific business needs.
02

Select the Best Plan and Features

Microsoft 365 offers a range of plans and features designed to accommodate diverse business needs. We help you to research and choose the plan that best aligns with your requirements and budget, evaluating factors such as the included applications (such as Word, Excel, Teams, and others), storage capacity, security features, compliance capabilities, and licensing options. We also consider add-on services such as Advanced Threat Protection, Information Protection, and Compliance to enhance security and compliance efforts further.
03

Plan for Seamless Deployment and Adoption

A successful Microsoft 365 strategy hinges on effective deployment and adoption across your organisation. We develop a detailed deployment plan that outlines tasks, timelines and responsibilities for migrating to Microsoft 365 services. And we provide you with comprehensive training and support to ensure your employees are equipped with the knowledge and skills to leverage Microsoft 365 tools effectively.
04

Ongoing Management and Optimisation

Microsoft 365 is a dynamic platform that evolves over time with new features, updates, and security enhancements. We help you to establish robust management and optimisation processes to keep your Microsoft 365 environment running smoothly and securely. We also regularly review your usage data and performance metrics to identify optimisation opportunities and address any issues promptly. Finally, we keep you informed about Microsoft's roadmap and upcoming releases to leverage new features that can benefit your business; and we prioritise security and compliance by implementing best practises, conducting regular audits, and helping you to stay vigilant against emerging threats.

Why choose Microsoft 365?

Stay on top of work

Office 365 includes all your must-have applications including Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher and more. Stay on top of work in the office, on the road and at home. And work better and more collaboratively with your team.

Keep in touch

Teams has transformed the way we operate. Host meetings, make video and audio calls, share files, and chat all in one centralised platform. Making working with people inside and outside your organisation easier than ever.

Manage documents and data

SharePoint lets you easily manage your documents and data, saving and sharing your files in a shared area designated for your organisation. Organise your personal and shared folders better, with high levels of security to keep them safe.

Business class email

Exchange gives you business class emails on any device. Communicate and manage your calendar easily and professionally and get access to the latest AI tools to support you with managing your time and workload.
The Sporting House – Microsoft 365 Cloud

Microsoft 365 Cloud Technologies Help Drive Olympian Levels of Success

Challenge

Whilst Sporting House had enjoyed rapid growth, their strategy was to significantly accelerate this. They were also acutely aware that their then IT service model was inadequate to support their ambitious plans for a number of reasons.

Solution

String worked with Sporting House to develop a new Microsoft cloud-centric IT strategy, that would leverage Microsoft 365 to support their wider business strategy.
“ We selected String because of their clear understanding of our strategic requirements, and were able to articulate how they, and Microsoft technologies could help us to achieve these. Our relationship with String has proven an extremely rewarding one, and we look forward to continuing to work closely with them moving forwards.”
Lee Cunliffe
Finance Director, The Sporting House
Jones Harris Chartered Accountants

Microsoft Hybrid Cloud Technologies Drive Paperless, Secure & Remote Office

Challenge

Jones Harris wanted to move to a fully paperless operation, without any interruption to the business. The company had a major dependency on a local Microsoft SQL Server database for their line-of-business applications, which limited their choices in terms of a potential cloud-only solution.

Solution

String worked with Jones Harris to help them adopt a hybrid-cloud solution, providing the optimal blend of Microsoft 365 cloud services, with the high performance computing power required by their LoB. Jones Harris now make full use of Microsoft's Power Platform, utilising Power BI for business intelligence, and Power Automate for business process automation.
“ String worked very closely with our internal guys, planning it out, mapping it out. There was absolutely no break in service, we were expecting there to be a few bugs, but it was a really smooth and impressive operation to get everything across and migrated. Absolutely top notch work, the String team!”
Martin Wigley
Director, Jones Harris Chartered Accountants
Ludlow Wealth Management - Azure Virtual Desktop

Access to Key Line of Business Applications Hosted on Microsoft Azure

Challenge

The increasing demand for online meetings, driven by the Covid crisis, meant that the Remote Desktop Solution was unable to provide an acceptable user experience. When the time came to refresh their IT infrastructure, we worked with the Ludlow team to ensure that the next upgrade cycle would address the changing end-user requirements, while further enhancing their cyber security and providing a high degree of scalability to cope with their ongoing growth.

Solution

Working with Ludlow, we produced a business case that showed that moving to Microsoft's Azure Virtual Desktop solution, and hosting their LoB application on Microsoft Azure would provide a more secure, cost-effective alternative to purchasing a physical server cluster. Their LoB application was migrated to Azure, and presented to end-users as a Published Application, removing the need for them to connect to a separate virtual desktop to access the app. Azure Backup was used to provide backup and business continuity and to further enhance Microsoft's already robust resilience measures.
“ String has consistently provided us with innovative IT solutions, without compromising our cyber security. The whole team are a pleasure to work with, and we consider them a trusted extension to our own team.”
Rob Brown
Chief Operating Officer, Ludlow Wealth Management Group
One Fylde - Microsoft Modern Workplace

Identifying Microsoft Modern Workplace as the Best Choice for the Client

Challenge

Following a merger between two organisations, our client found themselves with a disjointed IT service that comprised two large on-premise data centres, various security technologies, and a variety of remote access solutions. The result was a costly, difficult to manage IT infrastructure, with a poor user experience due to a lack of standardisation in the way IT was used. Of concern was that, as a large care provider, the client was responsible for the safe-keeping of a large amount of personal medical and financial data. Plus, users had become used to creating work-arounds to allow them to access and share sensitive information. The complexity of the IT infrastructure also meant they were suffering frequent service outages.

Solution

We discussed the opportunity for them to move away from their large, unwieldy on-premises infrastructure and instead to move to a wholly Microsoft cloud-based IT service. From our early discussions it was clear that such a move would allow us to radically re-imagine their approach to document and information management, business processes, and information security. The concept was embraced enthusiastically by the client, and it was agreed to move on to an initial business case analysis exercise. Firstly, however, we were engaged to stabilise the existing infrastructure, and to address the inadequate business continuity provision. The move to Microsoft Modern Workplace has allowed One Fylde to ensure data is more secure and improve workplace processes. All 400 users were able to access all relevant documents securely from any location. And the client can now enjoy the very latest in innovations from Microsoft on almost a weekly cycle.
“ One Fylde started to work with String at a time where our IT infrastructure was causing problems almost on a daily basis. The problems were meaning staff couldn't do their job to support people with learning disabilities in the way we wanted. String became involved with us and worked as a 'real' partner, feeling like part of the team to solve the immediate problem and with an eye to a longer-term more sustainable solution. We are now in a position where I can sleep at night and our staff are seeing the benefit of the huge amount of work that has gone on. And on a seperate note the whole team at String are really friendly, personable and supportive, working with us and continuing to support us to look at the future. ”
Tracey Bush
CEO, One Fylde

Insights

Our Microsoft 365 insights

Read more of our case studies and guides to understand how Microsoft 365 could help to streamline your business and enhance your team's productivity.
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Maximising collaboration and remote work with Microsoft 365

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