Member Article

Newcastle property developer strengthens collaborative approach with the cloud

Property developer Clouston Group has moved its management systems into the ‘cloud’ to build a more flexible business that will encourage greater collaborative working.

The company, which is developing the £200m flagship Stephenson Quarter adjacent to Newcastle Central Station, has seen immediate benefits from the shift from a traditional IT infrastructure to cloud technologies implemented by Synergi IT.

Alan Schofield, finance director at Clouston Group, said: “It has been a big win for the business. There have been capital cost savings, ongoing maintenance savings and a support mechanism that we feel better suits us as a business.

“Adopting Office 365 and moving into the cloud was a big step change for us. While the shift meant some change it only took a quick period of time before we picked everything up – much of the changes are quite intuitive and straighforward.”

He explained the shift was prompted by changes in the way people are using technology and the need to invest in a new server, PCs and licenses.

“The timing was perfect to review our IT system. We needed to become more adaptable; other parts of the business are getting more sophisticated and people have started using mobile devices. Also, our professional design team are continually improving the way they use technology to advance design on site and we needed to be able to access and share that. The old system never really got the integration working properly. We’re delighted with the savings and flexibility that Synergi have added to the business.”

Synergi recently announced the creation of a specialist Microsoft SharePoint division to meet demand from North East SMEs for specific cloud based software services. First launched in 2001, SharePoint is a powerful business tool that integrates intranet, content management and document management through the Office 365 platform.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .