COMMUNICATION:
Employees were equipped with laptop computers but all electronic communication, both within the business and with customers, was via e-mail using individual telephone dial-ups.  There was no means of sharing files - other than by copying - and hence potentially having several conflicting versions of documents across the business.  There was also no means of sharing news, events, appointments and announcements - other than to individually mail each employee and therefore each individual had to constantly keep an up-to-date mailing list.  Having each employee individually connect to the internet to send and receive e-mail was slow and lead to unpredictable telephone costs.  CW Audit wanted to share their audit data across sites using PricewaterhouseCoopers' TeamCentral software, but did not have the technical infrastructure to make this possible.  They also wanted to share other documents across all three sites including timesheets and company policy documents.  Finally they wanted to give access to some files to particular clients but had no mechanism for doing this.

DATA SECURITY AND RESILIENCE:
The security of data in an audit business is of high importance, as is the confidence that data will not be lost, even if a computer breaks or is stolen.
CW Audit were aware of this and also knew that their current scheme of having employees responsible for backing up their own data was difficult to manage and prone to failure.  A more managed and automatic approach was needed.

PROFESSIONAL IMAGE:
CW Audit owned several internet domain names and had a basic (public facing) website.  Because they were relying on basic and free e-mail services, they were limited to 10 e-mail addresses per domain name and therefore had a confusing mixture of @cwaudit.org, @cwaudit.co.uk and @cwaudit.org.uk e-mail addresses.  This lead to confusion and error and many e-mail messages were wrongly addressed and lost.  It was also confusing to clients and presented a less than professional image.

After an initial free consultation, ZUUK presented a proposal document which outlined a phased solution:

COMMUNICATION:
The first stage was to enable file-sharing within each office by installing a central "server" computer on which files could be placed.  A wireless network was installed such that laptop PCs could communicate even when people were "hot-desking" and no cable infrastructure was required.  Broadband internet access was provided to the offices and shared by all users via the wireless network.  This enabled fast, always-on access to e-mail and the world wide web for all users.  Content filtering and a firewall were added to protect the network and ensure employees followed a suitable usage policy.  As CW Audit do not have their own I.T. department, ZUUK  provide management and support for this infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of dedicated I.T. staff.

Now communicating and sharing files efficiently within one office and with fast network connections, ZUUK moved on to the problem of sharing files and information across sites.  To do this, ZUUK gave CW Audit access to their INSTANT INTRANET service.  This managed service provides a company-wide, cross-site hub for information such as: news, contact information, policy documents, company forms, meeting minutes, action lists, issues lists, events and calendar information.

To support CW Audit in sharing audit information, ZUUK installed and provided managed hosting for a PwC TeamCentral database.

Finally, in order to support sharing privileged information with particular clients, ZUUK enabled secure client-only intranet areas and suggested use of a separate  INSTANT EXTRANET service should a more extended "client-website" be required with a more customer-facing news, announcements etc.

DATA SECURITY AND RESILIENCE:
Given fast network access, all critical data on both the office file servers and the intranet is now securely and automatically backed up off-site.  No lost or broken PC and not even an office fire can be the cause of a serious and expensive loss of data.   All data is encrypted in transit to ensure that only authorised users can ever access this information

PROFESSIONAL IMAGE:
To improve the professional image of CW Audit, ZUUK coordinated the management of CW Audits internet domains and provided a professional mail service.  Now all CW Audit employees have consistent e-mail addresses and all domains route to the same web presence.  The original (public-facing) website is being re-designed to make use of "content management" - a service that means that, without the need to be web designers themselves, CW Audit can update and keep fresh the content of their own website.