How Revolution helped Natural Habitats with Managed IT

We met Brian and the team at Natural Habitats in 2022 after they reached out for a second opinion on their existing IT support company.

Natural Habitats is New Zealand’s leading design, build and maintenance landscape company based in Mt Wellington, with satellite offices across New Zealand. Their projects span domestic and commercial, and their work is visible in many of the incredible new public spaces we see around the country.

Natural Habitats have two kinds of workers – laptop/computer users, and mobile-only users. The business manages a lot of data for its design work, sales process, and projects so connectivity is important. Along with ageing servers, they were suffering from poor IT helpdesk response times, and a lack of visibility of their IT infrastructure – how it worked, who had access, and why they had certain services in place.

Challenge 1 – Move off the ageing on-premises server.

Natural Habitats data is stored on their servers in the Auckland office and people from around the country access it via VPN connections. Apart from being slow, this server represents a single point of failure for the business. If it goes down – the business stops working.

Challenge 2 – Provide timely IT support at a reasonable cost.

Natural Habitats were not receiving timely IT support. Staff were often sitting around unable to work while waiting for IT assistance. This was frustrating as it caused lost productivity and therefore lost profits.

Challenge 3 – Cybersecurity

Before onboarding with Revolution, Natural Habitats had no visibility over and little confidence in their cyber security.

Challenge 4 – Business Connectivity

The business had internet connections and rented firewalls from a major telco. They experienced reliability issues and an abysmally poor helpdesk when internet connections went down. It is difficult to run a business efficiently when the internet is not working and you’re sitting in 20th position in a helpdesk queue.

Replacing the ageing on-premises server

As of early 2024, there is a plan to replace this server with a fully cloud-managed solution but in the meantime (2023) we installed a BCDR device to backup data and take over from the server should there be a failure while the cloud data migration project is planned and implemented.

Total Care IT Support Plan

We onboarded Natural Habitats to our Total Care IT support plan which includes all-you-can-eat helpdesk support for a fixed monthly fee. This allowed Revolution to function as the one-stop-shop for all Natural Habitats IT needs, greatly simplifying their day-to-day operations.

Cyber security

We implemented an endpoint security product to protect Natural Habitats computers and bolstered that with 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring. Along with further protection for their Microsoft 365 environment, Natural Habitats can now be confident that their cyber security position is now and will remain sufficient for their needs. Read more about our cybersecurity plans here >

Business Connectivity

We implemented ultra-fast fibre connections at all their sites and protected their connectivity with firewalls from a major international vendor.

Natural Habitats is leading the way in the landscape design and build industry, and the difference now is that their IT infrastructure is there to support them rather than hinder them.

Fast, secure, and connected computing is what we expect from doing business in the modern day. With the support and care from an IT partner like Revolution, Natural Habitats can look forward to a future where:

• Their IT requirements and costs will be predictable, and
• Their IT partner will keep them continuously informed of how they can improve IT efficiency and security, and
• Their IT partner will respond quickly and efficiently when fixing an issue.

Talk to us and check whether your IT company is measuring up to the standards of working in today’s Modern Workplace. Partnering with Revolution IT just might save costs and improve efficiency for your business – just like Brian and the team at Natural Habitats. Visit them here >