Multimedia International Services Ltd (MIS) specialise in providing digital advertising systems and networks to business locations. With the Post Office as its largest customer, anyone who has stood in a queue at a Post Office branch will have seen MIS digital advertising in operation. As the UK’s largest digital advertising network, the company now has more than 1,600 multimedia advertising screens across the UK and 22,000 advertisers. Established in 1999, MIS has grown rapidly and includes flourishing operations in the Republic of Ireland and Australia.

Success was putting a strain on technology
The success of MIS was beginning to put a strain on the company’s IT infrastructure, particularly in the telesales and administration departments. Incoming Group IT Manager Steve Corsbie quickly realised that it was time to review and implement an IT infrastructure that would meet the future needs of the rapidly growing company.

“The telesales operation was taking up more and more of our IT management time,” said Steve. “We had 50 telesales desks running PCs with Windows® 95 and 98 on a peer to peer network. The machines were running a host of all the usual applications as well as our own contact management system.” Updating the PCs was becoming a time consuming problem and the IT team increasingly had to deal with a series of compatibility issues, which were becoming “productivity stoppers”.

“We were getting to the point where most of my team was spending its day supporting the telesales operation,” said Steve. “On a difficult day, even printing off a document was a problem.” In administration and support, the staff were running PCs with a mixture of Microsoft® Windows® 98 and 2000 and XP Pro. As well as the financial and administrative side of the business, this department also included a creative team using programmes such as Photoshop and Illustrator to design multimedia advertising for customers.

The customer Multimedia International Services Ltd Number of users: 100 More than 1,600 multimedia advertising screens across the UK

“Here there was an increasing problem with staff finding it difficult to collaborate on the same designs or files,” explained Steve. “We were seeing file corruptions and files saved in multiple formats.” In addition, the department’s PCs were three-to-four-years-old and reaching the end of their natural life. “The PCs were starting to fail on a regular basis, one every week, and it was taking us up to a day to rebuild each one,” said Steve. “The process was not helped by the fact that some staff were saving data on their local hard drive, meaning valuable data was lost and staff productivity hit if information could not be recovered.”

Clear vision and partnership key to success
Working with IT partner Alchemy Systems, Steve Corsbie reviewed the requirements for the business moving forward. “It was clear to me that a server-based computing infrastructure would meet all our future needs and create an environment that was easy to manage and secure,” he explained. “Alchemy Systems worked closely with us to specify the exact solution to meet our needs and worked alongside us to deploy the solution. They were there with practical advice and hands-on support all the way.”

MIS moved to a server-based computing infrastructure by placing an IBM central server farm at the heart of its business. In telesales, the IT team and Alchemy Systems installed Microsoft® Terminal Services with load balancing and IGEL 2110 thin clients on the desktop. Using RES Powerfuse management software, MIS was able to provide each sales person with an intelligent roaming profile allowing the department to hot desk effectively. In administration, the IT team used Citrix ICA Client and load balancing with the IGEL thin clients to run the graphic heavy software. 

The solution IGEL model: IGEL 2110 Terminal services OS: Citrix and Microsoft® Network used: LAN Gigabit network

Proactive IT in action
The thin client approach for MIS has transformed the way the business operates, improving productivity, security and business competitiveness, said Steve. “The IT team is now proactive, rather than continuously fire fighting because we have control of our IT infrastructure at our fingertips,” he explained. “New applications and upgrades are deployed centrally without interruption to productivity - the IGEL units do not even need to be rebooted.”

“Our compliance issues have been resolved as staff have no choice but to store all data securely and centrally. And on the rare occasion there is a hardware problem, the unit is down for a maximum of 10 minutes and if we ever need to replace the entire unit, it is just a case of plug and play.” MIS is so convinced by the ease and simplicity of the thin client approach that it will be rolling out the system to its Australian office as the operation grows over the next 12 months.

Applications accessed: Microsoft® Exchange and Office, Design software including Photoshop and Illustrator, financial and customer relationship management software.