The Client

Please listen to Ian Thomas’s audio testimonial.

The Client

Bevan Buckland LLP are the largest independent chartered accountants and auditors in Wales. The firm was founded more than 100 years ago and now has five offices across South and West Wales.  “We provide a valuable and tangible service, which makes a real difference to our clients’ personal and business finances.”  

Our relationship with Bevan Buckland LLP goes back to the late 1980s, and we continue to be their preferred IT service provider. Bevan Buckland LLP has entrusted CSG with the management of all their IT needs, based on their appreciation for the service we provide and the strong relationship we have built with them.

It has always been Bevan Buckland’s philosophy to embrace the latest technology, allowing the firm to meet the demands of the 21st century.  

The Background

The Background

Ian was with another IT provider, who failed to provide Bevan Buckland LLP with the service and strategy required. Ian always felt that CSG were a much better fit for the size of Bevan Buckland and valued the consistent attention that CSG were able to provide. 
“The relationship with the CSG team has always been exceptional, you can pick up the phone at any time and speak to a staff member with an in-depth knowledge of your system.”   

CSG allowed the firm to stay “ahead of the game” during the pandemic. The firm experienced many changes that they hadn’t encountered before – such as the whole firm suddenly having to work from home as the country went into lockdown.   

“We performed a remote working test prior to lockdown and discovered that our existing routers VPN feature would fall over with around 30 of our 100 staff connected. We were in trouble and had to act fast, this is where CSG saved us.”  

The Solution

The Solution

IT Hardware Infrastructure  

At the time of the onboarding, Ian was concerned that there would be a lot of different areas to manage. CSG was able to make this easy for Ian to manage due to the Managed Services package – this meant that the servers & storage, routers, firewalls and Sophos solution were all integrated for a single support delivery.  

Next Generation High Availability Firewall Solution 

“We introduced new routers in our head office configured in high availability mode to handle the workload required for the firm to operate efficiently”. 

 Before lockdown, only audit staff had the ability to work remotely at Bevan Buckland LLP. The Sophos Firewall that CSG implemented meant that we could cater for the number of staff we had and by the time lockdown came, thanks to CSG, we were ahead of the game.  

“A lot of other businesses we spoke to were struggling to get their remote services ready and because of CSG and the Sophos Solutions – our business had a secure remote working solution in place ready to go.” 

“Sophos paid for itself within the first week of installing – it’s a good example of what technology does for our firm.”   

 Cyber Security Assessment 365  

“Any vulnerabilities and anything we needed to pass the Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus assessments; we had confidence that CSG would fix it for us.”  

The Cyber Essentials Certification is a scheme that has been designed by the UK government to help businesses adopt good practices within IT. This can be difficult to achieve and with the support from CSG, Bevan Buckland were able to achieve the standards that are designed to help combat Cyber Crime.   

The CSG team continues to guide Bevan Buckland with the annual renewal process to maintain the ongoing certification status and remedial works as the scheme changes.   

 Microsoft Azure Migration  

The existing onsite system was coming to its end of life and due to the changes in how the organisation was operating with remote working, they now required an IT system that had security and continuity as integral components, Bevan Buckland requested CSG to provide recommendations.   

CSG undertook a review of the systems through deployment of various industry leading sizing tools and met with stakeholders to discuss the requirements long term. A solution was designed that would migrate server workloads into Microsoft Azure and provide a virtual desktop service through Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). The migration provides best in class cyber security services, remove single points of failure and help Bevan & Buckland to have improved business continuity.   

 “CSG recommended we migrate our IT systems into MS Azure to take advantage of latest technologies and cyber security systems. We have recently had a fire in our server room and it didn’t impact the business in anyway. AVD enables our staff to work smart and access all the important apps and data wherever they are based.” – Ian Thomas, IT Manager, of Bevan Buckland LLP.

The Testimonial  

“With the global pandemic gathering pace in early 2020, we sent all staff home to simulate the country being in lockdown. It was a total disaster! Our existing hardware couldn’t cope, and we had to ask all staff to return to the office immediately. Within a limited timescale CSG introduced a solution to enable the whole firm to work remotely, which was critical for us to be able to trade as normal during turbulent times. CSG recommended we migrate our IT systems into MS Azure to take advantage of the latest technologies and cyber security systems. We recently had a fire in our server room, and it didn’t impact the business in anyway. AVD enables our staff to work smart and access all the important apps and data wherever they are based. CSG has continued to be the ideal partner to manage our IT infrastructure and security needs. Thank you, CSG.” - Ian Thomas, IT Manager