Sycamore Trust

Business Challenge

The charity had run on the same setup for around a decade, server in the office, mix of desktops and laptops, no real cloud. “The whole system was very slow because it was so outdated. And quite often I would come in to staff not being very happy because they hadn’t been able to access something.”

Intermittent Support When It Mattered Most
“The support was quite intermittent and slow from the service provider.” For a charity where IT directly underpins the support given to families, that translated into people not being helped when they reached out.

Funding on the line
“If you’re going for local authority funding, one of the key things that you need toprove is that your IT system is secure… if you can’t show that, then you will not be awarded local authority contracts.”

The Solution

A TEAM THAT LISTENED FIRST
Three providers tendered. Urban came in last and asked the questions the others hadn’t, about staff, about mobile working, about funders, about what actually broke in a bad week. “Immediately they asked us lots of questions that would not been asked before.” The decision was effectively made in the room.

FULL MICROSOFT 365 MODERN WORKPLACE
Old desktops and laptops out, single-laptop-per-staff in. All Sycamore Trust logins work on any office laptop, so people interchange devices for meetings and presentations. Files moved to the cloud. Staff who used to leave the laptop at home in case the connection failed now take it everywhere.

CLOUD TELEPHONY, NOT PERSONAL MOBILES
The old phone app on staff personal mobiles is gone. The new system sits on the laptop. Calls can be transferred properly, picked up from home or in a meeting, and silenced cleanly out of hours. “So it’s like being in the office without being in the office. So that’s the best thing about the phone service that we have now.”

HAND-HOLDING FOR NON-TECHNICAL LEADERS
Pre-work with the operations manager. Same engineers across the cutover days. Two weeks of close support afterwards for the small things. A direct line to Perry when something feels off, with a fix turned around in hours rather than days. The relationship runs through, not just up to, contract signing.

Business Results

All office-based staff now work flexibly. The desktops are gone. Same login, any laptop, anywhere – office, home, parent meeting, or community visit. During tube strikes staff can grab a laptop from the office and work from home rather than not work at all.

Around 30 percent less admin per parent-carer appointment. Notes are typed during the meeting, not after it. Online referrals to specialist services are made face to face. Forms that used to be sent home with the parent are filled in the room. The parent leaves with one less thing to do at home.

Funder-grade IT security evidence in place. The CEO now has weekly and monthly reports on usage and incidents. Cyber security can be evidenced to local authority funders, trustees and the Board, instead of taken on trust.