Groundswell maximises budgets through successful five year service provider relationship
help4IT Ltd, a leading provider of outsourced IT, helpdesk, consultancy and Cloud IT services has announced details of its client Groundswell that has switched to an outsourced IT model to allow the charity to benefit from responsive IT support while reducing costs.
Groundswell is a registered charity that started in the mid 1990’s that has helped homeless and vulnerable people take more control of their lives, have a greater influence on services and to play a full role in the wider community. From its offices in south west London, the Groundswell team of 12 staff and 40 volunteers organise events that bring homeless people in direct dialogue with policy makers to use their experiences to inform and influence policy at local, regional and national level
Information technology is essential for the charity that uses a mix of common office productivity tools such as word-processing, email, CRM and database software. With a philosophy to maximise the use of its limited resources to benefit homeless people, reducing unnecessary costs is a key requirement. As part of this aim, the charity initially chooses to use a Linux based server with open source software instead of more costly Microsoft based equivalents.
However in 2006 after a major server problem that an incumbent IT service provider was unable to solve, the charity sought assistance from help4IT. As Linux experts, help4IT solved the issue and Groundswell decided to employ the firm as its permanent outsourced IT provider.
Over the last 6 years, help4IT has helped the charity with day to day technical support, office moves and server upgrades. “We did experiment with having a part-time in-house IT person but it was not a good option for us,” explains Athol Hallé, Chief Executive of Groundswell UK, “Both the high cost and the lack of flexibility made outsourcing our IT to a professional service provider a much better option.”
Hallé highlights the responsiveness of help4IT as a valuable attribute. “Over the years they have provided us with a good service that has allowed us to stop worrying about our IT systems and focus on working with homeless people.