The Challenge

For Garo to deliver their renowned level of excellent customer service to their clients, they needed an IT infrastructure that was able to match their ambition. For Managing Director (MD) Joe Ree and Karen Quinlan (IT Manager), creating a collaborative workplace that was both scalable and secure was essential. Along with creating a modern workplace environment, ensuring their customer facing website had an excellent uptime rate was a key priority for Garo. With over 50 users on their team, salespeople on the road and a large expansion happening within the organisation, an overhaul was needed to match the growth of the business. After careful consideration and consulting with the experts at supportIT, the Garo team made the decision to migrate to Microsoft Azure.

How did Garo approach their migration to the cloud with Microsoft Azure?

Much like most businesses in a post- covid world, Garo’s previous approach to remote working had served its purpose, but it was now time for a more long-term approach. Adding an extra layer to the security of their data was front of mind for Joe and the team. They were also aware that their current on-premises server was aging, and it was becoming costly to maintain it.  Having worked with supportIT for over 5 years as their trusted IT partner, Joe and the team at Garo were confident in our ability to deliver a robust and scalable Azure service that would be aligned with the needs of their business. supportIT’s MD Joe McGivern and Cloud & Infrastructure Project Lead Gavin Tinnelly worked together to create a roadmap to migrate Garo to the Azure Cloud to enable them to achieve their business goals.

How supportIT delivered on Garo’s requirements

For supportIT, our goal is to make the process as seamless as possible for our clients and for Garo, this approach was no different. Garo’s on-premise servers were moved to Microsoft Azure, along with moving all user access to systems into Azure Virtual Desktop. To allow the sharing of documents and files with ease, their files were also moved into SharePoint, bringing all of their data securely into the cloud.

Power BI was also deployed to allow the team to make strategic decisions based on their data. To ensure that the team at Garo were able to get the most out of their Microsoft Licenses, supportIT also provided them with training across Microsoft services including Forms and Teams.

Virtual desktops streamlined the onboarding process for new employees. The shared login experience across all devices has made their onboarding process much easier, eliminating the need to download different apps per device as they continue to scale and grow, which has reduced admin time and increased productivity.

Garo have future-proofed their IT infrastructure, having created an environment that supports their growth and removes any concerns over potential downtime.

“The supportIT team are experts at what they do and made our transition to the cloud seamless and efficient. Implementing Microsoft Azure has helped us to grow and scale our business securely and my team can now use the technologies in our toolkit to their full potential thanks to the knowledge sharing and training we received from Gavin. This has been a hugely positive move for Garo.” – Joe Ree, Managing Director (MD)