Success Stories
PA Media
The story
Easy Access to email and collaboration tools with single sign on from anywhere.
"As Core has vast experience with migrations to Office 365, we felt we were in safe hands and as if nothing was too much trouble for them."
Overview
Based in London, PA Media is a leading provider of multi-platform content solutions across a broad range of industries and 145 years on its standing and reputation as a national news agency remains unmatched.
- National news agency for the UK and Ireland employing 50 staff.
- Leading multi-media content provider across web, mobile, broadcast and print.
- For over 145 years they have provided fast, accurate feeds of text, data, photos and video.
They were struggling with a technologically outdated desktop infrastructure that was in desperate need of an upgrade to a more usable and robust system. “Our communications and collaboration system was becoming a challenge to manage effectively and efficiently” says David Reed, Head of IS and Infrastructure “PA Media agreed it would be more cost-effective to upgrade to a unified, secure and stable platform”. After a review of the different possibilities and options available, a decision was made to exploit the latest cloud-based technology in order to reduce costs and improve performance and staff productivity.
“Initially it was crucial for the PA to move to the Cloud at its own pace, implementing a hybrid environment. By working with Core we were able to do this and benefit from their excellent expertise and advice as needed.”
Leading cloud partner
Working with Core, one of Microsoft’s leading Cloud Accelerate Partners, PA Media were able to migrate to Microsoft Office 365 exploiting Exchange Online and Active Directory Federation Service to provide single sign-on.
“Initially it was crucial for PA Media to move to the Cloud at its own pace, implementing a hybrid environment” says Reed, “By working with Core we were able to do this and benefit from their excellent expertise and advice as needed.”
PA Media were looking at moving not only their email to the cloud but additional systems and applications which were located across organisational boundaries. They also wanted to offer employees single sign-on access to enable anywhere working. Through Core’s knowledge and vast migration experience they were able to embed the new technology with little or no problems.
Under Core’s guidance
“As Core has vast experience with migrations to Office 365, we felt we were in safe hands and as if nothing was too much trouble for them”.
Staff feedback to the new system has been consistently high with many praising its user friendly and flexible working methods.
“Key to this popularity is the 25 Gigabyte mailboxes which is vital when dealing with vast quantities of multi-media content” states David Reed. “The addition of a single sign-on has also given staff access to their messages from anywhere, whether that is at home, through a public Wi-Fi connection or on a customer’s site”.
Summarising the move to Office 365 with Core, Reed stated “We now have a system that is working well and is much more stable, cost effective and reliable than the previous model”.
Following the success of PA Media's move to the Cloud a further migration of Meteogroup, the weather forecast division has also taken place.
Discover our solutions and services
Our portfolio encompasses end user solutions, Azure cloud technology, Microsoft business applications, and digital business platforms.
For businesses looking to develop a modern workplace, our cloud technologies help business achieve effective collaboration through cloud-based software, such as Teams, SharePoint, and Viva. We help businesses transition from legacy server solutions to Microsoft Azure.
To add greater value to our core business solutions, we provide digital platforms such as document management, case management, project management, and intranet solutions.
Our professional services team ensure our managed services run like clockwork, through professional onboarding experiences, and they are the reason Core is a Microsoft Gold Partner with more than ten specialisations.
We are extremely proud of our professional services team, who maintain multiple Microsoft accreditations providing our customers with specialist, hard-to-find skills, and delighting our customers every single day.
From individual project work, and technology enablement, through to Core's very own Smart Services, we never fail to deliver.
Core’s IT Managed Services have been carefully developed to provide specialist extensions of our customers' internal IT teams.
With our Managed Service Desk providing first line support to end users, customers benefit from SLA-backed expertise to ensure productivity remains high.
Underpinning our Managed Service Desk, we offer managed services to cover every aspect of business IT environments, from Managed End User Compute, Managed 365, and Managed Security, through to Managed Infrastructure services to cover physical and cloud assets.
Do you need help developing your modern workplace?
Fill in the form to discuss your requirements with one of our specialists and get a free assessment of your environment:
What you'll get from the assessment:
- An understanding of how your business can develop a Modern Workplace
- Clear advice on any challenges your business may face and how to overcome them
- A clear pathway for your business to take, with guidance on adoption and deployment