Sovereign Business Integration has won a five-year contract with Thrive Homes and completed the implementation of a new IT infrastructure at Red Kite Community Housing.
Thrive Homes has extended its current one-year IT contract with Sovereign for a further five years, with Sovereign delivering and managing a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for greater IT security, more flexible working and lower IT support costs. As part of the contract, Thrive Homes’ servers and associated data will be moved to Sovereign’s secure data centre. The VDI service enables Thrive Homes to run any applications and processes centrally through Sovereign’s data centre.
Elspeth Mackenzie, chief executive, Thrive Homes, said, “We initially outsourced our IT requirements to Sovereign in December 2010 and saw a marked improvement in the way we could use IT in terms of its flexibility and efficiency. In addition, we saw a reduction in the running costs of the IT infrastructure.
“By moving to a virtual desktop infrastructure we have the flexibility to scale our IT requirements as our business grows. We also have the flexibility to implement new working practices for our staff, as accommodating remote working is now easy.”
Sovereign smoothes Red Kite transfer
Sovereign Business Integration has completed the implementation of a new IT infrastructure at Red Kite Community Housing alongside the transfer of 7,300 properties to the housing provider from Wycombe District Council. The four-month implementation was completed in December 2011, with Sovereign continuing to provide interim IT management until at least the end of April 2012.
Sovereign worked with Red Kite’s in-house team and the council’s existing outsourced supplier to deliver the new infrastructure comprising the entire network, servers, telephony, upgraded housing management system, finance and website. Northgate provided technical services to the project.
Neil Venables, resources director, Red Kite Community Housing, said, “Sovereign has been like an in-house team to us, working closely with technical suppliers to ensure that our IT infrastructure would be delivered on time, while at the same time driving down costs on our behalf.”
Sovereign now has continuing responsibility to manage a 12-month outsourced service contact while Red Kite decides its long-term approach for IT service delivery.
