Cloud Case Study
An RIA firm managing $1.2B in assets for Institutions and families. Formed in 1994, they provide customized professional money management with various strategies tailored to the risk tolerances of each client.
The Challenge
To ability to set up an identical user work environment in any location. The firm’s primary office was located along the Northeast corridor which has been experiencing an uptick in commuter delays due to aging infrastructure and inclement weather. Ownership wanted the ability for portfolio managers, operations, and client service personnel to work anywhere and anytime. The concern was the ability for all team members to comfortably adopt a remote user experience that was identical in the office or if need be at home or on the road. The additional benefits would ensure their disaster recovery planning was real time and not fragmented if they had to work from their once daily backups at a remote server location.
Why CSSI Remote Desktop Environment
The RIA chose CSSI IT Technology Services early on because of the reputation, quality of past work completed, and the ability of CSSI to meet all the business requirements of the operations group.
“We were a firm that prided itself on all employees being here early to ensure our data was accurately prepped for the opening market bell. That meant all our personnel had to be in the office early and on time. We kept shying away from the ‘remote working’ arrangement since our day to day needs seemed to require face to face interaction. This was becoming increasingly difficult since we were susceptible to commuting issues and inclement weather.
Since we implemented the remote desktop environment our schedules haven’t changed. Everyone is still here on time but the stress levels have decreased and morale increased significantly since the options to work from anywhere are there.”
Their existing service included a server on site that with their data backed up to a remote site daily. The disaster recover scenario would have employees working from home with limited applications up and running in a few hours.
The introduction of the CSSI remote desktop environment was a game changer allowing all users to access their own profiled desktop from any authorized desktop, laptop, or tablet with duo factor authentication. In addition, the cycle of on site server upgrades and line item negotiations with their local IT provider ended with removal of onsite servers.
“This seemed like a daunting task at first but CSSI was able to run a parallel environment that allowed us to comfortably transition to our new remote desktop environment. The easy part was the technology piece which was set up fairly quickly (2 weeks). The longer portion of the transition was the time spent customizing each user’s desktop.
CSSI spent the time training and ensuring everyone had all their folders and applications in all the right places. Once this was done everyone adopted fairly quickly.”
The management team had constant communication throughout the onboarding process and the firm fully on-boarded within 5 weeks and cut over to the new environment in the 6th week. Process improvements have continued with the client upgrading to a reporting package to automate quarterly report distribution to their CSSI Portal. CSSI continues to provide tier 1 support to the firm which is included with all remote desktop environments.
The Benefits
In this case study, CSSI was able to provide full business continuity and stability with a remote desktop environment thereby increasing the client’s confidence in their day to day operations.
CSSI has built a reputation of responsive customer support and quality work which was demonstrated throughout the onboarding process.
Next Steps
To learn more about how CSSI can help, please reach out to: Christian Cruz, , (610) 992-9287