Introduction

Three Plus is a Queensland-based business and marketing communications consultancy specialising in reputation, brand and relationships management. The business aims to create the best environment within which to implement business plans and maximise success.

Three Plus offers its clients a truly national capability via an east-coast network of on-the-ground consultants, project consultants and affiliates. Since its establishment in 2002, the business has emerged as one of the largest Queensland-based consultancies of its type. Client support has played a key role in Three Plus being named in the Q400 list of Queensland's top 400 privately-owned companies every year since 2005.

Barton Green is the Executive Director, and one of the owners of Three Plus.

The Challenge

In 2008, Three Plus was using an early version of a hosted solution, but it was often unstable and the organisation suffered as a result.

“We opted for a hosted solution because we needed our 55 staff in different offices, as well as our freelance workers working from home, to have the same access to data. Prior to this, different versions were sent via email and duplications often occurred when incorrect versions were used. Because our service was charged on an hourly rate, any duplications or loss in productivity affected our bottom line.

“We’re a marketing consultancy and IT is not our core business. We needed a solution that could help us concentrate on our core business, and host our key applications such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Dynamics AX, MYOB, and the Adobe suite.

“As a company, our data is the foundation of our business. So, we also needed a solid disaster recovery plan that would ensure the business could go on should anything happen to our physical offices", recalled Mr. Green. 

The Solution

“We selected IntraPower, as we knew that IntraPower would be able to deliver the solution we needed with the credentials to match. We had had previous dealings with IntraPower in another capacity, so we knew that we would be in good hands.

“We selected IntraPower’s complete Business On-Demand solution, as it provided us with the complete solution; maintenance, management, monitoring, disaster recovery and support.

“Once we approved the proposal, IntraPower built the system in parallel to our existing system. This ensured that the new system was fully tested prior to cut over, minimising downtime during the transition.

“As part of the service, we got private network connections to the IntraPower High Availability Network to deliver applications to our PCs. This provided us with a stable and secure platform for our business as a whole, irrespective of location.

“A local server was installed to host our graphic package Adobe Suite, and this was backed up to our server on a timely basis. IntraPower provided full support throughout the transition, and this was vital as we had no other IT support on hand.

“Cut over occurred in early 2009 over a weekend. It didn’t take long for our users to get up to speed with the new virtual desktop.”

The Result

“The IntraPower solution has met our expectations in a number of ways. Firstly, it helped us to deliver the same standard of IT service across our business, irrespective of location. The solution is intuitive to use and our staff required minimum training. We also experience less down time than before, ensuring that all of our time is productive.

“What I really like about the solution is that it is flexible. The per-user per month pricing helps us to plan our requirements in advance. We are also able to easily upgrade our applications when required, (we are planning on upgrading to Windows 8 for example) and IntraPower will provide the support to do this.

“Most importantly, Business On-Demand helped us to concentrate on our customers. We have removed IT as a distraction and can now concentrate on our core" commented Mr. Green.

About Three Plus

Three Plus is a Queensland based business and marketing communications consultancy specialising in reputation, brand and relationships management. Our goal is to create the best environment within which to implement our clients' business plans and maximise success.

The Three Plus Way is an issues-based strategic planning approach aimed at ensuring that all campaigns are targeted to outcomes - and it is something that our clients have responded to positively together with the skills and experience of our team.

We offer clients a truly national capability via an east-coast network of on-the-ground consultants, project consultants and affiliates. Since establishing in 2002, Three Plus has emerged as one of the largest Queensland-based consultancies of its type. Our clients' support has played a key role in Three Plus being named in the Q400 list of Queensland's top 400 privately-owned companies every year since 2005 to today.