Case Study – Boosting IT Security and Operational Efficiency

This client is a legal office with 13 employees and a variety of business and technical needs. This case study explains how PCG worked to meet this company’s technical needs and improve its IT environment.

NOTE: client name excluded due to the private nature of some details

Background Issues

The legal office had been working with another managed service provider (MSP) for about eight years, and although the MSP wasn’t meeting the company’s needs, they were worried about changing providers due to their history with this company.

However, their business was growing, they had a long list of tech desires, and they were buying a new building. They also wanted better response times and more guidance than they were getting with their current MSP, and after talking with us, they felt confident we could meet their needs more effectively than their current provider.

Strategy

To develop a strategy, we started with three specific tasks:

  • A network audit to verify the company’s current IT setup and assess the standards in place at the current office.
  • A walk-through of the new building to get a sense of the need and challenges
  • Security risk assessment to look for gaps and vulnerabilities

During the network assessment, one of our engineers did an onsite audit of the company’s network and their user requirements. The engineer verified their infrastructure, firewall, line of business (LOB) applications, and vendor info. We also assessed what new equipment the law office was going to need in its new site. Currently, they were sharing a network with another office, and they didn’t own all the equipment they needed to have their own network.

The walk-through at the new office helped us create a plan for setting up the IT in this new space. We looked at where the law office needed video conferencing, wireless, printers, and other IT essentials.

Working with an old building is a lot more complicated than setting up a wireless network in a big open space. We had to take into account how the copper, wallpaper, ceilings, and other features in the building affect wireless transmission so we could choose the optimal locations for the access points. We also needed to make a plan to wire this building to support the company’s phone lines and wired PC connections.

The risk assessment took into account big issues such as business continuity planning and supporting a remote workforce, but we also looked at relatively smaller issues that were creating vulnerabilities. For instance, the law office was running their email on a shared hosted exchange server, and we moved them to their own Microsoft 365 tenant/platform.

Tactics

Based on what we learned during the network and risk assessments and the walk-through of the new office building, we came up with a service plan that showed how we could replace that company’s current MSP by performing these actions:

  • Running wiring for voice, data, and wireless in the new office building
  • Doing a wireless assessment at the new building
  • Providing help desk and security training for employees
  • Creating a budget for long-term IT needs
  • Creating a plan to replace the server, improve backup disaster recovery and firewalls, and replace aging PCs/notebooks

We also scheduled an IT strategy review (ITSR) two months after our start date. This allowed us to get to know the company before sitting down with leadership to create an IT strategy and budget.

Results/Outcomes

This client chose PCG because they liked our onboarding blueprint for success, and they also knew that we had expertise with other law firms who were very satisfied with our services. They also were also excited about our help desk services and how our knowledge of wiring would streamline the move into the new building.

We physically helped the law office move to their existing hardware to the new building, and this included assessing what new equipment they needed, running new wiring, putting in switches, setting up the firewall, and handling the PC and notebook setups. We were responsible for moving all of their IT assets from the old building to the new site, and we worked after hours to ensure they wouldn’t lose any productivity in the move.

To improve the law office’s security, we nailed down the security in the new office, but we also set up a secure virtual private network (VPN) for remote users. We created a list of recommendations and a plan to address the company’s other security concerns and data vulnerability gaps.

We continue to work with our point of contact at this company to ensure that their needs are being met consistently and proactively.

Contact PCG to Talk About Your IT Needs

Are you struggling with network performance issues? Worried about security gaps? Getting ready to move your IT to a new building? Regardless of your business’s unique challenges, we can help. To learn more about our managed IT services, contact us today.