Berry Bros. & Rudd is Britain’s oldest wine and spirit merchant. A supplier to the Royal Family since the days of King George III, it has traded from the same shop in St. James’s Street, London since 1698 and today has additional offices in Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.
“Many of our team are located in Central London and travel in from elsewhere. The recent improvement works at London Waterloo station have made things much more difficult in terms of getting into the office. However, Surface as a Service has allowed the employees affected to work anywhere with exactly the same user experience as if they were at their desk in the office. This has been a real saviour for us.”
Keeping Britain’s oldest wine merchant productive on the move
Centrality was already a trusted partner of Berry Bros. Its OneDeploy solution had recently been installed to standardise its Windows-based servers, PCs, tablets, and other devices. With this positive relationship already in place, it was a natural evolution for Berry Bros. to consider Centrality’s Microsoft Surface as a Service to further enhance its capabilities.
Berry Bros.’ fine wine business needed to create an effective mobile working environment for its employees. Travelling extensively to visit customers and prospects in a variety of locations, they need to be able to work productively, wherever they’re based. The business was keen to find a costeffective solution to deliver this, and was already considering Microsoft Surface as an option. Hence its interest in Centrality’s offering.
Delivering big results in a small timeframe
“We needed a partner who could get us where we wanted to be, quickly. We knew we wanted to deploy Windows 10 across our entire environment in the future and Surface as a Service gave us comprehensive Windows 10 Pro availability on mobile devices. Centrality was the perfect choice: they had the expertise to get everything done, with a flexible business model to suit our requirements.”
Comprehensive, customised service
This was supported by a comprehensive Centrality ‘service wrap’. Centrality became a one-stop shop for all Berry Bros.’ Surface needs, providing customised solutions and software.
The solution was implemented on-site at Berry Bros, and Centrality offered ongoing support and partnership throughout the deployment process. Everyone involved worked closely together. The team encountered some software deployment challenges early on in this process as a result of compatibility issues between legacy apps and Windows 10. However, these were constructively and successfully worked through, to provide a configuration that met the needs of all Surface users.
To ensure everyone involved could get up to speed with the new service as quickly and easily as possible, Centrality created a user guide to walk employees through the entire Surface experience. Presented as a printed, bound document, it saved time on training and was customised specifically to fit Berry Bros.’ business.
Centrality’s installed solution was similarly user-friendly. Employees had the freedom to configure their own suite of services, by choosing the functionality and features most relevant to them. As such, they get maximum value from every aspect of the Surface as a Service experience.
In the event that a Surface machine fails or breaks, Centrality will send out a replacement on the next working day. Access to Centrality’s 24/7 helpdesk for employees to contact and receive immediate expert support was also part of the package. The whole service is managed for one all-inclusive, monthly fee. This provides peace of mind that every eventuality is covered.
Making a difference, from day one
Users have been positive about the new capabilities and technologies, and report productivity gains and an easier mobile working environment.
These employees enjoy the full features of Windows 10 and Office 365 from wherever they are.
“Many of our team are located in Central London and travel in from elsewhere. The recent improvement works at London Waterloo station have made things much more difficult in terms of getting into the office. However, Surface as a Service has allowed the employees affected to work anywhere with exactly the same user experience as if they were at their desk in the office. This has been a real savior for us.”
If this initial strong performance is sustained, Berry Bros. will consider extending Surface as a Service across its entire business – to some 300 users across its three offices