Case Study

How Ravendale Foods Switched IT Provider Without Disruption

Ravendale Foods

Overview

Established in 1983, Ravendale Foods is a leading wholesale supplier of meat products in the North East, with customers across the UK. From its AA-grade, BRC-approved production facility in County Durham, it manufactures high-quality pork products for the retail, catering and food manufacturing industries.

The business is known for going the extra mile for customers, delivering quality products on time and at a competitive price.

The Challenge

After several years with the same IT supplier, Ravendale Foods decided to review its options. Like many businesses, its biggest concern about switching was disruption while a new provider settled in.

The business also operates across multiple sites, with staff moving between offices and the production line, which made accessing email on the move difficult.

Customer service is a priority at Ravendale Foods. We needed to ensure that when changing IT providers we were confident that there would be minimum disruption to the business, allowing us to continue to meet our customer expectations.

Alistair Gray, Ravendale Foods

The Solution

Every new Smart IT customer goes through a structured onboarding process that starts with a full IT audit. We plan the migration in detail so everything keeps working while we make the switch.

Security gaps closed. The audit found that several PCs were running unsupported operating systems. We replaced most of them, which allowed us to install cloud anti-virus to protect against ransomware, phishing and spam.

Email on the move. We migrated email from a hosted Exchange server to Microsoft 365, so staff can pick up messages away from their desks and respond to customers faster.

Fast response when it mattered. When a legacy broadband issue needed the connection to be terminated and reprovisioned at short notice, our engineers worked on site to get the business back online quickly.

Customer Feedback

What was different about Smart IT is they listened to our requirements and took the time to understand our business. They identified areas of improvement and have come up with some fantastic solutions which allow us to be more agile as a business.

Alistair Gray, Ravendale Foods

The Result

Ravendale Foods found the transition to Smart IT seamless, and quickly saw the benefits of a dedicated helpdesk.

With up-to-date, protected PCs and email available anywhere, the business is more secure and more agile. A dedicated account manager now works with the team to understand its objectives and advise on how IT can support them.

We are extremely happy with the ticket response timeframes from the helpdesk and escalation teams. The engineers are all friendly and extremely proactive and helpful.

Alistair Gray, Ravendale Foods