A major investment in IT will see greater mobility and flexibility in 2023 when every team member will be provided with a laptop device.
According to IT Manager, Justin Kenneday, the team has been working towards this significant milestone for some time.
“Originally the laptop rollout was part of a three-year IT strategy, but it’s been expedited. Despite some challenging supplier issues, we expect to commence rolling out the laptops to team members from March 2023, so a three-year program condensed to just six months,” Justin said.
A 16-year veteran with the firm, Justin said the move reflected the partnership group’s aim to improve flexibility for the team.
“The team is working more in the cloud and with cloud-based applications and this is expected to continue through to 2024, 2025 and 2026.
“Plus, the popularity of video calls and Teams calls means that everyone can be a part of this modern way of working, with full connectivity.
“Laptops enable superior connectivity to the team’s remote workers. If everyone has the same access to e-meetings, then our remote workers are fully supported.
“Workplace videos are also common practice, and laptops provide a better experience for the end user.”
Justin said Ulton traditionally invested heavily in server hardware every five years, but as storage and working applications increasingly move to cloud-based products, it made sense to move to more mobile-based computing.
“One of the big advantages of this rollout is that we can create scale relatively quickly.
“It also provides a standard operating environment, a standard platform that everyone is configured to so that updates and information sharing are relatively quick and easy to perform.”
Challenges like supply chain issues have slowed down the rollout somewhat.
“There have been some delays due to logistical issues, but we’re aware of those and monitoring the situation and working around that to deliver the project within our time frame,” Justin said.
“After a successful pilot program, the team has been overseeing the complete rollout. The configuration stage can be done beforehand, with deployment involving physically swapping over the hardware.”
Justin said the biggest success so far had been the number of users migrating to the softphone.
“Our team is really enjoying that aspect of the new technology, they are handing in their traditional handsets in droves, they just don’t need them anymore.”
Ulton Chairman of Partners, Daryl Corpe said the rollout was setting the firm up for a bright, efficient and fully connected future.
“We know that connectivity and cloud-based computer applications are the way of the future. By investing in this technology now, we are setting the team up for success,” he said.