- petwood.co.uk
- Approx. 16 users
Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire
The Petwood offers award-winning cuisine, classic afternoon tea and proximity to the charming Woodhall Spa. It also caters for weddings and other special events.
Key Outcomes
- Modern Standardised Framework
- 24/7/365 Monitoring
- Microsoft 365
The Challenge
Set among acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, in the heart of “Bomber County”, The Petwood is a memorable place to stay in Lincolnshire. Steeped in rich history and unique heritage; this repurposed stately home was once home to the famous Dambusters.
As with many hotels in the hospitality industry, The Petwood Hotel had been doing things the same way for quite a few years. This incredible, heritage hotel, was in desperate need of a technology overhaul and swift hoisting into the digital age.
The old system involved a combination of new and old styles of paper records, digital spreadsheets and a cloud booking system. Throughout the business, a variety of desktop software versions, such as Microsoft Office 2013/2016/2019 were in use, with little to no standardisation.
Backups were performed to tape, with staff needing to remember to change these on a daily basis.
In terms of understanding the intricacies of IT, the hotel was somewhat lacking. The company still relied heavily on a telephone and face-to-face booking system. Not only that, but the instability of the hotels IT infrastructure meant regular crashes and much frustration.
Although The Petwood had an existing firewall, this device did not include many of the advanced protection technologies such as Anti-Ransomware, Data Loss Prevention and DNS level filtering. Also, a new staff Wi-Fi would soon be needed to allow for tableside ordering from a tablet device.
The entire operation was extremely reliant on paper, photocopying and duplicates, resulting in large quantities of waste. The sheer volume of documents and photocopies made it impossible to store data with accuracy and efficiency.
One of the biggest challenges we face as a business is ensuring that systems within the hotel are always available anytime during business operation. Air IT has been the key to getting us back up and running when there have been outages and failures, meaning the disruption to business has been minimal
Emma Brealey
Director, The Petwood Hotel
The Approach
Desperate to develop the hotel’s current infrastructure and systems, Managing Director Emma Brealey brought Air IT on board.
Having met through a business introduction; The Petwood Management Team was impressed by the personable and approachable nature of the Air IT team.
Working closely with The Petwood, Air IT planned, managed and deployed a new hybrid solution. A new on-premise server was used, with email and specific data moved to the cloud.
Backups now occur through an enterprise ‘Disaster Recovery As A Service’ (DraaS) solution, allowing for frequent daily backups of critical data and on-premise and cloud boot/recovery. Air IT also deployed a new firewall and staff wireless solution, allowing for award-winning enterprise-grade protection and coverage.
Alongside reinventing the hotels IT infrastructure, The Petwood required a new IT supplier. Impressed with Air IT’s approach, working together came naturally. Working collectively, they drew up a set of practical plans and achievable IT goals. Understanding the hotels budget limitations and existing frameworks, Air IT worked together with management to design, build and implement systems for smooth running, security and efficiency.
In a nutshell, Air IT rejuvenated an old system, bringing The Petwood Hotel into a modern, digital world. They met the challenges face-on and executed them with accuracy, efficiency and minimum downtime. The foundations in place are now robust, future proof and have the malleability to allow for development as the business evolves.
The Outcome
Air IT helped The Petwood on its journey into a modern standardised network – utilising cloud-based applications for core services. All users have the most up to date software with client information protected to the highest standard. Advance backups occur during the day without any staff interaction, allowing for total peace of mind.
Moreover, Air IT has enabled 24-hour monitoring, aiding the hotel in their greatest need – an uninterrupted system 365 days a year. Whenever a technical problem arises, Air IT have it resolved within their SLA, with minimal disruption to the business.
Streamlining the hotels IT systems and processes, Air IT furthermore implemented the cloud-based Microsoft Office 365, enabling staff to work remotely. This technology has undoubtedly assisted business productivity, efficiency and continuity, and helped in developing a robust disaster recovery strategy by hosting critical services in the cloud.
Continually supporting and advising The Petwood in discussions with third-party suppliers – particularly around guest and customer systems – Air IT has aided the team in overcoming any integrational challenges.\
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