Little, Brown Book Group
Little, Brown Book Group’s focused publishing strategy has seen them twice win the KPMG publisher of the year award, and with a broad range of titles regularly topping the bestsellers lists, they are firmly established as one of the UK’s leading publishing houses.
In October 2007, Little, Brown Book Group (LBBG) carried out a large-scale office move to Victoria Embankment in the heart of London. Throughout this often testing process, the company worked in partnership with Network Resource Group (NRG) to ensure that the project was carried out successfully, on time and within budget.
Anna Fitzgerald, LBBG’s IT Manager, was on hand throughout the office move. Anna explains “we decided to take the opportunity of the relocation project to make major changes to our IT objectives and infrastructure”. With the opportunity to base the company’s IT infrastructure around a clearly defined set of objectives, NRG were able to provide support in turning ambitions into reality: “It was very beneficial. R&D through NRG is something that is useful to access, as we do not have such resources of our own. Having that expertise to fall back on and to advise us and solve problems is a big asset for us.”
As part of the move, NRG implemented an IP telephony system that has been benefitting users throughout the past year. “We knew what we wanted to do when we moved, but we had issue with normal, two-wired telephone systems. With the improvements in IP telephony, and associated security, we feel it’s delivered on our requirements.”
Ongoing, Anna highlights a number of advantages that lie with the IP telephony solution: “The flexibility is very good. We’ve since had a lot of internal desk moves with people shuffling around, so it’s been great to be able to log people off one phone and on to another. A lot of people are really liking the voicemail link with Outlook; we have quite a few users with Blackberry so that’s actually really helpful.”
Anna has also seen operational benefits in the office network that NRG has helped set up and supported: “The LAN has been very good. Ghosting a new machine rather than having to spend an hour setting it up has been really useful. Roaming profiles have allowed us to hot desk and saving our IT resources; it works well.”
NRG manage a 1GB Central Pipe to Victoria Embankment. Throughout installation, the company was consulted and kept informed of developments, as Anna confirms: “We didn’t have any problems at all. The pipe is good; we got the pictures of how it was laid, and we felt that we were really involved with the implementation process.” Anna plans on basing a DR solution around the pipe: “the plan is that we are going to virtualise our twenty-odd servers here down to three or four, and that’s going to be replicated offsite so that our services are going to be available within a half-an-hour period should we not be able to access this building.”
Summarising her experience of the office move, Anna says “You threw all resources to help us meet the deadline date and pulled out all the stops. It was a partnership; at the end of the day the stress we felt was not felt by anyone else in the company, which is a good way of working. We were able to rely on you and you delivered.”