The Client

toogoodtowaste is one of the UK’s leading re-use charities, serving the community of Rhondda Cynon Taf and wider areas. The Welsh charity collects household items, from furniture and electrical appliances. 

toogoodtowaste is proudly working towards becoming a self-sustaining organisation, providing jobs and training for local people, helping both the environment and community.  

“We walked away from our previous IT support because it was so poor. We continue to see ourselves with CSG for the long-term.” – Shaun England, Chief Executive Officer.  

As a non-for-profit, cost is a big issue to us. We have to ensure that we always get value for money, the correct support and no-nonsense advice. 

The Background

CSG has been supporting toogoodtowaste for 15 years and because of how successful the relationship between us started, the reuse charity decided to move all IT processes to CSG 10 years ago. 

Having an IT provider that has control of everything means that toogoodtowaste only requires one line of communication for their entire IT & telephony departments – meaning that issues get sorted quickly. 

The team at toogoodtowaste express how they aren’t “technical experts” and that they are aware certain levels of IT require specialism.  

“Although CSG has that high expertise, you can always talk to someone who will explain everything in simplified terms – they will take the time to explain everything.” – Shaun England, Chief Executive Officer

A recent example is when CSG sent information regarding the MFA (multi-factor authentication) process and the team got confused with the different IT terms. CSG straight away set up a quick teams meeting, which allowed them to explain everything so that toogoodtowaste understood exactly what was happening.  

“This is important for us, it’s about cutting out the jargon and adapting the information to suit our needs, this is something CSG excels at.” – Shaun England, Chief Executive Officer. 

The firm recently had an issue with the internet at one of their locations. CSG’s team member came out to solve it and within 30 minutes he had the entire Wi-Fi system running again.  

“You can wait weeks and weeks for someone to come out usually, but with CSG, we were able to get it sorted within an hour.” – Shaun England, Chief Executive Officer. 

Throughout 2024, cyber security has been the main focus within the organisation at toogoodtowaste.  

“If we were to get a cyber-attack then our business would be impacted greatly because everything is currently on our servers: this is how important the support from CSG has been and continues to be.” – Shaun England Chief Executive Officer 

The Solution

It’s important to us at CSG that we provide the most cost-effective approach to your IT issues whilst offering the most up-to-date information about the services we provide. 

“You can tell that CSG put their customers first.” – Shaun England, Chief Executive Officer. 

 Hybrid Cloud Set Up 

CSG’s systems allows toogoodtowaste to enable remote work through taking advantage of cloud innovation, helping maximise their existing on-premise investments by relying on an effective hybrid and multi-cloud approach. 

When computing and processing demands became too much for toogoodtowaste, the cloud instantly helps scale up or down to handle excess capacity, allowing our client to avoid the time and cost of purchasing, installing, and maintaining new servers that they didn’t need. 

The hybrid cloud platform allowed toogoodtowaste to take advantage of the existing on-premises infrastructure advantages, including automated data redundancy and other robust cybersecurity features.  

Microsoft 365 Modern Workplace Migration  

Microsoft 365 is the productivity cloud designed to help users achieve what matters using the best-in-class Microsoft 365 apps, intelligent cloud services and advanced security.  

“Finding a way for our staff to be productive from anywhere required something new. This is where Microsoft 365 came in to help.” – Katie Blake, toogoodtowaste.

The collaborative tools are a standout feature for our clients, and they express how Office 365 takes away the hassle of manual software updates. This provides a more efficient working environment for the team, allowing them to reduce IT issues and get on with day-to-day demands. 

Managed Backup Service 

“Everything to do with our business is on our servers, so if we were to get a cyber-attack it would have a dramatic impact on our business – this is how important the support from CSG has been and continues to be.” – Katie Blake, toogoodtowaste.

CSG’s Managed Back Up Service has provided toogoodtowaste with the confidence that if their files were either attacked or accidentally deleted, then we are able to recover critical workloads and systems for the organisation. 

Cloud Telephony across multiple sites 

Communicating across multiple sites is very important to the team at toogoodtowaste and allowing the team to break free from traditional ISDN was very important. The Cloud allows toogoodtowaste to grow in sync with their systems without overloading their systems.  

This project allowed better customer engagement for the team and their customer relationship management strategies greatly improved when the cloud telephony system was set up across the 3 different sites.  

Cloud phones can be more than just a phone system; they can quickly turn into a strategic focus and a competitive advantage.  

Centralised Wireless Network across multiple sites. 

Every minute counts for businesses – a centralised wireless network has enhanced productivity and collaboration for the team at toogoodtowaste. With untethered access to documents, emails, applications and other resources, employees at the business can roam where they need and still have access to resources for getting the job done. 

The wireless network across multiple sites have provided: 

• Mobility and Collaboration. The team can stay connected while moving across the 3 sites and they are able to access up-to-the-minute communications and all documents and apps on the network, anywhere, at any time. 

• Accessibility. For the areas that the wired network struggled to connect properly, this wireless network allowed the entire team to stay in touch. 
• Expandability. When new team members join, it’s easy to add new user and locations without needing to run cables and wires.  
• Guest access. Offering secure network access to guest users, including toogoodtowastes’ customers and business stakeholders, was important to the management team. What was more important that this was done with their network resources being protected – CSG are happy to have been able to provide this.  

Monitoring / Management & Support 

The team at CSG work hard to ensure that our clients are kept updated throughout every step of the way. Our Microsoft certified technicians manage toogoodtowaste’ systems on a 24/7 basis.  

Not only do toogoodtowaste receive weekly reports and immediate responses from our IT support help desk, like other clients, but they also receive a face-to-face review whenever required. 

“Getting a face-to-face review for how our systems going is priceless. The personal interaction is better than seeing a face on the screen.” – Katie Blake, toogoodtowaste.