Pro-Networks always deliver. Having just switched IT suppliers I had forgotten that these companies could be so responsive. A breath of fresh air.
Dave Woods, Finance Director
Warrington’s Own Buses can trace its routes back to 1902, when the first electric tram commenced operation in Warrington. Over 120 years later they’re still going strong, providing the quality local bus service the town of Warrington rightly deserves.
They carry over 6 million passengers per year, using a fleet of 91 buses that operate approximately 5 million kilometres in service per annum.
With seven non-executive directors on their board, as well as three locally based, full-time management directors, they combine the best of private sector experience with public sector ethos.
Background
Warrington’s Own Buses invited Pro-Networks to take part in a tender to provide the company with its future IT Support. This tender decision followed a protracted period of dissatisfaction with the IT provider in place. Following several meetings with key people at the company, Pro-Networks were awarded the contract.
The network Pro-Networks inherited was unnecessarily complex (with more VLANs than users) and was fundamentally unreliable.
Solution
Our experienced team of Microsoft certified engineers worked closely with Warrington’s Own Buses to ascertain what the shortcomings were, what they needed from their network today, and what the future held. A plan was agreed to rebuild and simplify the existing network and to introduce an element of disaster recovery utilising Warrington’s Own Buses second site. This would provide a level of redundancy they had never previously enjoyed.
Given the ‘always on’ nature of Warrington’s Own Buses there were concerns in changing provider, and even greater concerns that the plan may not be delivered on.
Warrington’s Own Buses needn’t have worried. Despite the lack of cooperation from the outgoing IT partner Pro-Networks were able to rebuild and simplify the network, introduce a more robust backup solution and introduce an offsite backup solution within both the timeframe and the agreed budget.
Collaboration and Communication
Most impressive to Warrington’s Own Buses was the collaboration and updates provided by our team every step of the way. Work took place both during and outside of working hours to ensure the business was kept up and running at all times.
Unique Challenges
A unique set of challenges were encountered, and overcome, by our experienced customer onboarding team at Pro-Networks much to the delight of Finance Director Dave Woods. Dave said “The switching of IT Support was not a change that we were looking forward to facing up to, albeit there was a real need to improve our IT infrastructure, improve the responsiveness to our users, remove the smoke and mirrors built by our previous IT company and on top of that, we were trying to save some costs. The selection process was a difficult one, but since we appointed Pro-Networks as our IT Support partner, we have been incredibly pleased with our decision.
For Pro-Networks themselves, the decision to tender for Warrington’s Own Buses IT Support contract may have been a slightly risky one as we represent a different type of client, but they approached the entire process in a totally professional manner putting us, as the customer, at such a level of comfort that it ultimately made our decision an easy one.
From the go-live, the entire company have been impressed with the professionalism shown and the level of responsiveness. It is as though Pro-Networks have looked after us for years.
Finally, I am pleased to confirm that the aims that we had at the outset; improve our IT infrastructure, improve the responsiveness to our users, remove the smoke and mirrors built by our previous IT company and save some costs were all achieved.”
Outcome
At the time this case study was originally published. Pro-Networks had been supporting Warrington’s Own Buses for 3 months and the historical IT nightmares are a thing of the past. At an executive management meeting at that time, the long-standing agenda item of ‘IT Concerns’ was marked as resolved. Warrington’s Own Buses now have a robust, professionally supported system, at a lower cost than was previously being paid.
In January 2024, Pro-Networks completed a hardware refresh at the new Head Office for Warrington's Own Buses making the network more robust, secure and easier to understand. This upgrade was performed with minimal disruption for the customer.