TP Bennett are an award-winning architectural practice based in London. With over 100 years in the industry, they are one of the top ten architecture firms in the UK and have specialist expertise in listed buildings, built heritage and conservation. Stand-out projects include the accoladed head office for Guardian News & Media and ambitious renovation of London Bridge Station.

TP Bennett were rethinking their end user strategy, which consisted of multiple legacy Microsoft solutions and could be difficult to manage. With the arrival of COVID-19, there was also a need to support secure remote working across the entire firm. TP Bennett required a solution that would consolidate their current estate, as well as introduce modern technologies that would give remote users the tools needed for success.

Bytes worked closely with TP Bennett to further develop their existing strategy for Microsoft 365 – a cloud-based productivity suite that includes Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility & Security. Office 365 enables remote collaboration with solutions like Teams and Outlook, whilst Enterprise Mobility & Security drives secure remote working and offers simple device management with solutions such as:

• Intune – a device management solution providing visibility and control of remote devices and how users access business data.
• Autopilot – enables IT teams to setup and configure devices easily for users.
• Azure Active Directory (AD) – an identity and access management solution providing secure remote access to business resources and safeguarding user credentials.

To help TP Bennett implement this new technology, Bytes provided their FastTrack service, which supports Microsoft 365 adoption using guidance and workshops. The Bytes FastTrack team ran several sessions to migrate the firm across to Microsoft 365 and help them start using tools such as Teams and Intune quickly. Bytes also delivered workshops around Azure AD to help TP Bennett setup and configure access policies successfully.

After extensive cost modelling workshops, Bytes also advised switching to a Microsoft CSP commercial model for Microsoft 365. This consolidated the multiple strands of TP Bennett’s estate under one simple model, with the added benefits of scalable user quotas, flexible monthly billing and rapid support from Bytes. TP Bennett can now scale up or down, depending on their needs, and only pay for what they consume in the cloud, as opposed to having multiple fixed annual contracts.

Adopting Microsoft 365 enabled TP Bennett to adapt quickly to remote working. Using technology such as Intune and Autopilot, they were able to rollout laptops to their users featuring a full suite of remote working solutions, such as Teams. Azure AD added an extra layer of protection, ensuring secure remote access to business resources.

Thanks to Bytes FastTrack, TP Bennett gained the knowledge required to fully take advantage of each solution in Microsoft 365. Moving to a CSP model increased scalability and streamlined the firm’s approach, resulting in annual savings of £15,000. TP Bennett plan to continue working with Bytes, having found a partner they can trust for all their future software and security requirements.