THE CLIENT
Founded in 1982 as Andrew McMath Real Estate Pty Ltd to service Victoria’s picturesque Yarra Valley, today the family-owned business is run by Andrew’s daughter Lyndal McMath-Hall and her husband Ashleigh Hall. Several years ago they joined the Professionals Group, which has 277 offices across Australia and New Zealand, and became known as Professionals Yarra Valley.
The award-winning agency is a strong supporter of many local clubs, schools, community groups and events, as well as the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
THE CHALLENGE
Having operated from a single office at Yarra Junction for three decades, the expanding business eventually opened a second branch at Warburton, 10 kilometres east in 2014, pushed by increased growth rates. The plan was for both offices to have simultaneous, equal access to all electronic documents, files and photographs; however productivity was hampered by slow remote access to files and ageing infrastructure.
DESPITE THE NEW WARBURTON OFFICE HAVING EXTREMELY FAST INTERNET, THE NETWORK WAS PARTICULARLY SLOW. MOVING TO NBN HAD NO IMPACT ON SPEED, SO THE COMPANY SOUGHT A CLOUD SOLUTION.
THE SOLUTION
Already having a relationship with Viatek for print and multifunction devices, Professionals Yarra Valley approached Viatek for an overarching ICT solution. Viatek’s immediate suggestions were followed with a structured proposal within two days, and the solution was up and running within three weeks from the Professionals’ initial call.
VIATEK’S RECOMMENDED AND IMPLEMENTED SOLUTION INCLUDES: MANAGED SERVICES AGREEMENT WITH AV AND MAILGUARD, AZURE SERVER WITH VPN AND BACKUP, WATCHGUARDS FOR ADVANCED THREAT PROTECTION, AND HP PROCURVE SWITCHES TO IMPROVE OFFICE NETWORK SPEEDS.
"The fact that both offices can now work together and the speed… that’s huge.”
THE RESULT
The solution has had a very positive impact on productivity. All documents are easily and quickly accessible, with no difference between the two offices.
Melinda Darwall, a Licensed Estate Agent, supports the sales team across both offices, says this has resulted in excellent time savings. The system also allows staff the opportunity to work remotely.
"The fact we can log on and do things from home will make a difference. If someone has a sick child or needs to be at home, they can still work from there. It’s really flexible.”
Professionals Yarra Valley is very happy with other aspects of the solution as well, such as back-ups and security.
“ While we didn’t have security issues, they can happen easily. What we have in place now has removed this potential. Security wise, we were also really nervous about having all our files stored in the cloud in a potentially random country. The fact that Viatek has datacentres in Australia probably did tip us over the edge to say ‘yes, we’re going with them.”
Transitioning to the cloud happened smoothly.
“ I was actually off the day after transition because my daughter had hurt herself badly playing netball. But I was really worried about having the day off because I thought things could just go haywire. They didn’t. There were one or two problems, but staff just called the help desk and the help desk fixed it for them. And we haven’t had a problem since.”
Viatek does our photocopiers and printers, and they’ve always been great. Any time there’s been an issue, they fix it straight away. Viatek got the new cloud solution working very well. It’s been really, really good – amazing.”
– Melinda Darwal | Estate Agent
