The challenge

Limited potential for future growth

The team at Mint felt they had outgrown the capabilities of their previous IT provider and that their IT was limiting potential for future growth. Mint made the decision to partner with someone who could not only provide support but who could also be a key partner in laying a foundation to support future growth.

Robust security posture

For a financial services provider like Mint, having a robust security posture is absolutely critical. Mint works closely with Aura Information Security and wanted a partner who would complement Aura’s services and help ensure a robust security posture.

Local data centre

Hosted on a local server farm, it would take significant time for a new server to be built and provisioned. This impacted the performance of Mint’s infrastructure, was slowing the team down and holding them back from achieving their broader business objectives.

Old systems and tired hardware

Like many businesses, Mint was utilising a legacy remote desktop system which was running on old hardware. Additionally, with an on-premises email server, Mint would regularly experience issues with calendar sharing and didn’t have ready access to a specialist collaboration tool to fully leverage the potential of remote working. Users were also equipped with tired hardware that hadn’t been optimised.

The solution

A winning plan

It was clear to both parties that Mint needed to become a cloud-first business equipped with the latest tools and backed by the highest levels of security. Mint had a clear set of requirements and goals which our team used to propose a digital transformation plan, including a cloud migration to Microsoft Azure and a transition to Microsoft Office 365.

Cloud migration to Microsoft Azure

The financial services sector is one of the most heavily regulated in the world and in New Zealand it’s no different. As part of the transformation plan, we developed a plan to transition Mint’s workloads to Azure, a solution which could scale quickly and ensure future-proofing while maintaining the required levels of security. It was important to ensure the transformation followed best practices and would be low friction for Mint’s employees.

Microsoft 365

Mint’s requirements were a clear fit with Microsoft 365, a solution that would consolidate information in a way that ensured compliance while increasing productivity and ensuring business continuity. Our team developed a plan to move Mint from their on-prem email Exchange server to Microsoft 365.

Azure Virtual Desktop

Our team also designed an Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) solution as a replacement for Remote Desktop Services. AVD would enable Mint’s staff to access their virtual desktops and applications from virtually anywhere while adhering to their strict security requirements.

Microsoft Teams

Effective internal communications are vital for any successful business. Set against a backdrop of lockdowns, remote working and a congested landscape of emails, online chat apps and other collaboration tools, we recommended standardising on Microsoft Teams so that all Mint staff could collaborate easily whilst ensuring the security of their documents and work.

The results

Seamless transition with no downtime or disruption

Our team migrated Mint to Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Office 365 seamlessly with no downtime or disruption. The team at Mint could get on with their work without extensive training as services deployed were intuitive and easy to use. Utilising services such as Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Virtual Desktop, Azure Files, Conditional Access Policies and geographically replicated Azure Backups provides employees the ability to carry out their day-to-day tasks while meeting business requirements around security and business continuity.

Agile and resilient thanks to Microsoft Azure

The global pandemic demonstrated that to face unexpected challenges, organisations need to be agile and resilient. In designing a move to the Azure cloud, our team ensured Mint would benefit from all the advantages of being in the public cloud whilst also being able to innovate in new ways.

Safer and more secure than ever before

The trust our customers place in us is something we take extremely seriously. We believe IT is the lifeblood of every business and are 100% committed to keeping our customer's information and data secure. Working with an ISO 27001 certified partner like Lancom Technology, and having workloads hosted on Microsoft Azure, means Mint’s environment has never been more secure.

Future proofed with increased productivity and collaboration

Microsoft Teams provides a central hub for the Mint team to meet, work, share and chat. A channel for everything, Mint’s staff are able to collaborate on files and keep up on the action. With Mint growing rapidly and looking to expand its business structure, our solution also ensures any future subsidiary companies will be able to collaborate with one another.

A better end user experience

Having previously experienced latency, the speed at which end users are served information and the load times of systems and software has improved greatly, increasing productivity whilst decreasing annoyance levels.

Managed services partnership

From completing the digital transformation programme, we’ve established a true partnership with Mint. One that is based on trust and respect and will see our teams working to keep the Mint team humming by providing ongoing managed services.