Cycling milestone

Evans Cycles has 50 stores across the UK as well as a thriving ecommerce operation, with its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) supported by an internal team of six. Connectivity, agility and resilience between the Head Office and across the network of stores are essential, with both data and telephony underpinning the smooth running of this major retail enterprise.

By moving to InTechnology’s managed services, Evans Cycles has benefitted from upgraded legacy systems, solved growing data storage and security issues whilst reducing IT spend.

Evans Cycles’ move to InTechnology’s managed backup service has not only removed a system administration burden, it has transformed the speed of restores, reduced the backup window and added an extra layer of security to their disaster recovery strategy, providing peace of mind.

InTechnology then moved Evans’ Head Office phone system onto their hosted IP telephony platform and took control of its entire calls and lines estate. This centrally hosting infrastructure has allowed the cycle retailer to bring online three new stores, both quickly and within budget.

Richard Twinn, IT Support Manager for Evans Cycles said: “InTechnology offers a lot more than just a ‘home’ in its data centres. Theirs is truly a managed service, leveraging not just their physical Cloud infrastructure but their people, their skills and their resources to deliver ‘end-to-end’ solutions and leave client IT teams to focus on more-added value activities.”

When the Evans Cycles IT team was tasked with replacing its aging telephony infrastructure and reducing spend, it approached potential outsourcing partners for a solution. During initial discussions with InTechnology, there emerged a number of distinct issues arising from Evans’ legacy infrastructure. Along with the corporate PBX that was no longer meeting the needs of a lean, fast-moving organisation, there was evidence of significant overcharging from their existing calls and lines provider. A growing data estate was also putting pressure on a tape-based backup system that was unreliable.

Richard added: “What we found really encouraging was the genuine prospect of significant performance improvement with cost reduction – that was exactly the ‘double whammy’ the company was looking to us as a team to achieve.”

Natalie Duffield, Sales Director at InTechnology added: “Evans Cycles choosing us over our competitors has further boosted our reputation as one of the UK’s leading Cloud and telephony providers. We continually prove we are capable and have the capacity to give a more efficient and reliable service.

“We are confident that as a result of adopting our managed services, Evans Cycles has secured a 20% reduction in their IT costs and drastically improved the speed, agility and flexibility of their IT systems.”