About Hampshire Flag
Family-run business, Hampshire Flag, can design and print almost any kind of colourful and high-quality material to help businesses promote their brand or product in even the most testing of environments.
Established over 35 years ago, their now 36-strong workforce continues to operate from their head office in Waterlooville, but supplies worldwide to big brands including the BBC, Team GB, BAE Systems, B&Q and DHL.
The Challenges
Having a reliable IT infrastructure is crucial to support the printing hardware and design software at Hampshire Flag while complying with ISO 9001 and Cyber Essential certifications.
With limited IT knowledge internally, they needed an honest and transparent provider they could rely on to make the best recommendations for their business and in layman’s terms. Their IT partner would need to take complete ownership, support them in making the right decisions for their business and be their trusted outsourced team for anything from user and speed issues to security and data storage.
The Solutions
We have been working with Hampshire Flag for over a decade, and during that time we have managed an Office 365 migration, a complete infrastructure overhaul, and provided general support and maintenance services.
As the business grew, we identified that their risks had increased and that led to us recommending a review of their systems and security. Recommendations for a full upgrade soon followed.
Time was spent looking at the various options available that best suited the business needs now, as well as in the future. This involved detailed proposals including hardware, software and support costs, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each choice; to ensure senior management had a complete and easy-to-understand picture so they could make an informed decision.
Based on our recommendations, we delivered a full hardware and software upgrade, from PCs and servers to firewalls and licences, and implemented an extensive backup and recovery solution. It took 7 weeks including sourcing, installation, testing and service improvement.
A proactive, fully managed service now allows us to identify any potential IT issues before they pose a risk to the business and to be on hand to support all staff members with even the smallest IT challenge.
The Impact
The working environment is now much slicker, with strict security measures and remote back-ups being done automatically. This provides much-needed reassurance to the client at a higher level, as do our monthly site visits, while giving end-users access to expertise as and when they need it.
Managing relationships with their phone and internet provider is another thing they don’t have to worry about, as we ensure all systems work together for continuous network connectivity.
Client Quote
“Chris and the whole team at Zinq IT are so helpful. From day one, we have received exemplary advice that has been delivered without technical jargon, and recommendations that are in the best interests of our business and not their bottom line.”
“Zinq IT has, in fact, saved us money and at the same time, significantly enhanced system performance in the office which has resulted in a happier and more productive workforce – all of whom feel more confident in the work they do because there is someone to support them with any issues immediately at the end of the phone.”
