Provident Financial Services
Technical Services Case Study
​Provident Financial Services is a Perth based group of multidisciplinary and highly experienced financial planning specialists. Headquartered in Nedlands, Western Australia with a satellite office in Wangara, Western Australia, Provident has some 35 users who work at the two office locations and remotely. This highly mobile work force requires both the technology and technical support to remain agile and responsive in a new age of remote working.
In addition to providing general IT Support, Provident has engaged OIA on various projects including Consulting on Infrastructure Refresh, Office Relocation, Security Enhancements and Remote working.
Office Relocation
In 2018 Provident moved to new premises and engaged OIA to carefully plan and manage the relocation of infrastructure and services such that staff were able to operate seamlessly throughout the move. OIA coordinated external services providers to ensure core services were available in the new location with minimal disruption to operations.
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“The office and IT relocation went smoother than expected and we were and back up and running within a few hours of moving. OIA did a great job of relocating our IT and exceeded our expectations.”
– Sharyn Rule, Director of Operations.
Managed Services Agreement
Provident’s Information Technology is underpinned by an OIA Managed Service Agreement (MSA). Technical issues are unpredictable and therefore the associated costs can vary dramatically from month to month. Provident wanted a fixed price agreement to help manage their IT spend. The MSA allows Provident to quickly log tickets and have the peace of mind that issues get resolved in a timely manner. With the added benefit of System Monitoring that an MSA offers, it often prevents minor issues from escalating, allowing users to continue their day-to-day work with minimal disruptions.
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"It's is great knowing what our monthly spend is so we can budget and plan accurately. We couldn’t be happier with OIA’s quick response time to any query raised and the action they take."
- Sharyn Rule, Director of Operations.
Remote Working - The New Normal
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COVID-19 quickly changed the way businesses had to conduct daily operations. Companies needed to have staff be able to work remotely and OIA worked with Provident to enable their staff to achieve this.
This entailed OIA deploying a work from home model, supplying the required equipment and access to core systems whilst maintaining best practice security and redundancy to ensure Provident’s ongoing operations. VPN and Multifactor Authentication technologies
were established to enhance the security of sensitive data and minimise the risk of data breaches.
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“OIA were amazing in ensuring we had all the right equipment (hardware and software) organised and within a very short timeframe they had approximately 30 staff all working from home efficiently.”
– Sharyn Rule, Director of Operations.