Well-timed modernisation of IT support provided the best conditions for remote coworking
Örebrokompaniet sought to modernise its IT function and turned to Proact to find a new solution. The proposal entailed a transition to a fully cloud-based environment. It was implemented at just the right time. When the office was emptied in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company had just started using the tools that effectively enabled remote coworking. Örebrokompaniet is the marketing and tourism arm of Örebro, the sixth largest town in Sweden. The mission of this small company is to attract travelers, businesses, and events to Örebro. The company also manages events and guided tours at the medieval Örebro Castle. For Örebrokompaniet, it has never been a real option to have specialised IT staff. Instead, Proact has been assigned to provide user support and for managing servers and networks. This is a longstanding partnership where Proact also has an advisory role.
Challenge
Örebrokompaniet had an aging server estate with an imminent need for replacement. This also coincided with the company’s plans for moving their office. ”We have discussed with Proact over several years about moving to a cloud-based workspace. But as there was nothing in our present environment that didn’t work, we saw no hurry to begin the migration,” says Björn Fransson, at Örebrokompaniet. But legacy IT environment did have a significant shortcoming: the support it provided for remote working was, to put it mildly, limited. There was no practical way of connecting to the office servers and for using key applications such as finance, working on-site was the only option.
Solution
Instead of investing in new hardware and continue operating their on-premises servers, Örebrokompaniet elected to migrate to an entirely cloud-based environment. Some key components were already in place, e.g. the Office 365 email application.
With their new solution, Örebrokompaniet leverages a broad range of Microsoft Office 365 features. User home directories are now on OneDrive, where users have 1 TB of personal storage space. Workgroup file management is facilitated using Teams and SharePoint. All of these tools come included with Office 365 and are also available through apps for
mobile users.
“ Without the capabilities we now have for remote collaboration, we would have found ourselves in a very complex situation. It would not have been sustainable over time”
