Case study: Terminix UK
Mitie Pest Control (MPCL Ltd) to Terminix UK – Total Refresh
Will Stocks, IT Manager – Terminix UK
Company: Terminix UK
Sector: Professional Services
The Situation
In October 2019 it was announced that Mitie Pest Control (trading as MPCL Ltd) was acquired by ServiceMaster and rebranded as Terminix, an existing brand that did not yet have a presence in the UK. They had been offered the chance to stay on the Mitie IT systems until mid-2020 but were keen to break away completely. This meant that despite being part of an existing setup, they needed a whole new one – as if they were a new company starting from scratch!
They had 140 desktop users and 300 mobile users who’d already been using Office 365 and wanted to continue using the same apps and workloads that gave them. However, they also had a bespoke application which was being hosted locally and were also on a closed circuit for internet. This move was an opportunity to refresh their setup and make the most of cloud services. This is where TechQuarters came in. MPCL chose to go through this process with TechQuarters because of the intricacies of the move and our tech capabilities, but also the fact we offer support afterwards.
The TechQuarters Solution
The first thing TechQuarters did after consulting with the MPCL Team is create an IT Strategy document, with a plan of how and when we are going to move them away from their existing company. The plan was to do a staged migration in the run up to Christmas, ready for the rebrand in the New Year.
First, TechQuarters moved their bespoke application to Azure, so it is now hosted on cloud rather than on-premise. We also moved them off a physical domain, so they no longer had any servers on-premise. We then went on to recommend a new Office 365 subscription that gave them all the functionality they wanted, for slightly less cost. As they were setting up on their own with no remaining physical infrastructure, – we implemented a new internet line, new switches and new firewalls (all with redundancy) for their Head Office.
In terms of new equipment, they purchased all new laptops and screens through us, as well as new mobile phones and contracts, with mobile device management installed – specifically Microsoft Intune. This means they now have unified management of all devices, easily protecting document and data safety from one portal. All new laptops were set up with Azure Active Directory and same sign on multi-factor authentication options to help protect their users from cyber security attacks. They also implemented new tablets for all drone pilots, also all with mobile device management, and new printers that are managed by TechQuarters. Lastly their support was moved away from an outsourced company in India, to TechQuarters full-service IT Support outsourced option. Once all this was finished, they had a streamlined IT bill, so all licenses, support and equipment were handled in one monthly invoice.
“TechQuarters executed this project very well, with great communication from both the tech team and our Account Manager throughout. The staged approach and regular project calls made it easy to keep track of where we were within the process, and we had great IT support from day 1. Thanks to TechQuarters we were able to keep our business running with next-to-no downtime and a lot more control/insight over our IT estate!
Will Stocks, IT Manager – Terminix UK