Challenge

Based in a rural location, and with clients spanning the tourism industry through to military and pharmaceuticals, Applewhite Gifts needed a more suitable and up-to-date solution to meet their business needs.

For some time the company's owners had wanted to move to a cloud-based system, as Applewhite Gifts were keen to reduce management and ongoing investment in physical infrastructure. Their previous IT consultants had warned them not to change because of the low broadband speed, instead suggesting they invest in new hardware to resolve the problems posed by their ageing and unfit servers.

Applewhite Gifts also maintained a CRM database via a specialist company, which they wanted to fully integrate. It was essential that disruption be minimal as the business needed to continue trading throughout.

Objectives

  • Minimise disruption caused by the slow rural broadband speed
  • Enable the company to freely transfer large graphic files
  • Ensure the investment would provide the most suitable long-term solution
  • Integrate the new system with the existing CRM database, phone system and all hardware

Approach and Solution

Applewhite Gifts were frequently spending money on hardware upgrades and it was very important to avoid this in the future. Datcom took the time to understand the concerns faced by the company and proposed a free trial period of a cloud solution to reassure the client.

Datcom proactively worked alongside the specialists providing Applewhite Gifts' CRM database and took the time to research the hardware already in place.