Honeycomb Group is a social housing provider offering a wide range of services beyond housing. The organisation champions happy homes in a number of ways, including through support and wellbeing services. This included specialist homelessness, domestic abuse, and general home support. For over 40 years, Honeycomb has been dedicated to investing in a more vibrant future for its neighbours.
The Challenge
In 2022, Honeycomb began a journey to review and transform its IT services and systems. This included a strategic review and in-depth employee engagement to understand their technology needs further and this valuable feedback helped to shape and influence the IT roadmap. Getting the basics fit for the future with their desktop, server and network environment was essential. The project included migrating on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, maximising Microsoft investment, transforming and consolidating the core network, and upgrading the telephone system from Skype to Teams.
Honeycomb Group’s existing IT infrastructure was ready for an upgrade, particularly around resiliency and security, to protect important data. The pandemic highlighted the need for improved infrastructure to better support the groups agile workforce. In addition, the on-premises servers were insufficient to support the much-needed change.
For Honeycomb the benefits of transforming infrastructure to the cloud, included more predictable revenue costs, a higher performing desktop environment, better proactive managed services (Cyber and BAU support) and improved business continuity and risk mitigation
Honeycomb underwent a thorough tender process to find the right solution and partner. During this tender process, Honeycomb evaluated the marketplace for a Managed Service Provider that could align all business requirements to its needs. Ultimately, the organisation chose TSG as its Managed Service Provider.
The Solution
TSG’s proposal met Honeycomb’s needs, focusing on increasing resiliency, flexibility, and transparency in budgeting.
The project’s scope was all about transformation to a modern workspace which included a migration away from 80+ physical servers hosted in a datacentre, to a Microsoft first, flexible Azure platform. This platform integrates with Microsoft's M365 enterprise licences for the use of OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint, all of which were underpinned with a Managed Detection Response solution. The additional cyber support offered Honeycomb their own Security Operation Centre that would help enhance the existing Microsoft security products in place to protect the endpoints of the network. In addition to revolutionising Honeycomb’s IT infrastructure, TSG upgraded the telephone system from Skype to Teams.
The project included bolstering the security of their infrastructure offering and adding extra roles to keep data secure. Overall, the solution and implementation were comprehensive, addressing infrastructure, cyber security, and operational needs while ensuring strong project management and collaboration. Honeycomb’s transition to the new cloud-based solutions has been smooth, and employees are benefiting from the improved infrastructure and training.
The Results
Since the migration to the cloud, Honeycomb has seen multiple benefits, including:
Remote working: Migrating to the cloud allowed Honeycomb’s teams to work from home flexibly.
Modernising IT infrastructure: With the removal of the 80 servers, Honeycomb were able to move from a data centre infrastructure and modernise its IT with cloud technology.
More tools to use: The Microsoft 365 enterprise licenses have given employees more tools and capabilities at their fingertips.
Training and support: TSG Academy has been a valuable asset in upskilling Honeycomb staff around Microsoft apps and OneDrive.
Enhanced cyber security: The cyber security services provided by TSG and partners have brought increased assurance around cyber governance and better protection from ongoing threats.
Positive impact: As Citrix was replaced with Azure Virtual Desktop, the change in systems positively impacted employees, making technology more of a help than a hindrance.
What’s Next for Honeycomb?
TSG continues to support Honeycombs journey into the cloud, with plans to adopt SharePoint for more efficient team collaboration. The future cloud-based transformations focus on key areas such as operational systems and data transformation, ongoing cyber security enhancements, and upskilling staff on new cloud-based tools and technologies with TSG Academy.
When we embarked on this project, we needed a new managed service partner who could best meet our aims and objectives for cloud transformation, and we were under no illusion how big a change this would be. But from the start, we knew we were in safe hands with TSG and as we stepped through each phase of the transformation, we began to understand what a fantastic technology partner TSG are to work with. From excellent pre sales, through to effective project management and brilliant professional services, TSG never missed a beat. And now our new infrastructure services are live, and we begin to realise the projects benefits, we feel like we are part of the TSG family, receiving excellent cyber and managed support services complimented by the TSG academy training platform. For Honeycomb, our new partnership with TSG has set us on the right path as we embark on our exciting new five-year corporate plan. It's all about creating thriving futures for our customers, our colleagues and our business, and strong tech systems is a huge part of that, enabling our colleagues to work in a more joined up way to create fantastic results for our customers.
Richard Ball, Head of ICT at Honeycomb Group
Richard Ball, Head of ICT at Honeycomb Group
From excellent pre sales, through to effective project management and brilliant professional services, TSG never missed a beat. And now our new infrastructure services are live, and we begin to realise the projects benefits, we feel like we are part of the TSG family, receiving excellent cyber and managed support services complimented by the TSG academy training platform.
Richard Ball, Head of ICT at Honeycomb Group
For Honeycomb, our new partnership with TSG has set us on the right path as we embark on our exciting new five-year corporate plan. It's all about creating thriving futures for our customers, our colleagues and our business, and strong tech systems is a huge part of that, enabling our colleagues to work in a more joined up way to create fantastic results for our customers.
Richard Ball, Head of ICT at Honeycomb Group
