As one of the fastest growing independents in the UK, supporting growth with cost effective and reliable IT available remotely, was a problem that Illuminate knew only too well. It has doubled in size over the past couple of years by focusing on client needs, and had created an ecosystem of specialist suppliers, but had yet to harness the full potential of this new way of working themselves.

“We are not printers ourselves but instead translate our client requirements into a cost effective print production solution. We then manage the delivery through our excellent relationships with what I call our ecosystem of proficient suppliers” stated John Macdonald, Managing Director, Illuminate UK Limited.

This one-stop-shop flexibility is inherent to the way Illuminate works with clients. It offers a truly end-to-end service, and this was what they were now looking for from an outsourced IT partner. “We needed a system that would improve user performance, increase reliability and yet did not increase our overall costs.”

Illuminate needed a more reliable and flexible IT solution that supported staff working from client sites or home when required. “We looked at a number of options and felt that an outsourced hosted approach best fitted our overall needs.  We were sold on the hosted solution as it fitted so well with our company ethos so we turned to Intercept and its OnlineDesktop solution,” commented John Macdonald.

Illuminate was also aware that an IT failure would be catastrophic to the business. Print production is often last minute with demanding client deadlines and while a backup system was in place, there was no effective disaster recovery plan. “We simply didn’t know how long it would take our systems to be back up and running in the event of a problem, and a missed deadline would destroy the trust we’ve work so hard to build with our clients” stated John.

“It is critical that we can gain access to our IT systems remotely. OnlineDesktop now allows us to either access data in the office or when we are on the road with full PDA and Blackberry integration,” stated John MacDonald.

“As you would expect with a business such as ours we needed an enormous amount of data storage due to the size of the files we work with.  This in turn would mean a major capital investment and backup overhead, something we simply did not want to undertake. The hosted solution from Intercept therefore enables us to continue to grow without the need for increased storage costs.”

“What really impressed us was the fact that the entire solution took a matter of days to be up and running. Intercept staff really know their stuff and their knowledge is second to none. Once we received our login details and safeword secure remote access keys from Intercept we were all up and running. Over time we have introduced new technology such as Blackberry’s, and we are firmly convinced that this solution will enable us to continue to grow in the years to come,” concluded John Macdonald.

< Back to press