Contingent Works
Transforming the flexible working space
We can transform the way you work
Cofounders Ewan and Stephen launched Contingent Works in Bromley during the pandemic with a purpose of bringing a fresh, stylish and flexible way of working to the town centre. The location also acts a functional space for community events and helps promote local businesses of all types and in 2022, won the The Mayor’s Good Work Standard ‘Best Collaborative Coworking Space – South London‘ award.
The challenge
With so many cloud services available with monthly subscriptions it’s really easy for a new business to find a wealth of online tools to ‘get the job done’. However, the number of these services a business subscribes to, tend to organically grow in numbers over time and eventually becomes disjointed and difficult to administer.
Contingent Works were looking for guidance on how Microsoft 365 could replace the existing Google setup and where other services could be consolidated to reduce admin time, manual processes and costs.
There was no real structured approach to how the team keep in touch and often, the reception area was littered with post-it notes with messages between them.
Files used to run the business were in a number of locations including both Google Drive and Dropbox so an easy to use single storage location was desirable.
The solution
After collecting all the requirements we started to build a new Microsoft 365 environment that was specific to Contingent Works needs when we moved them from Google. This was to make sure we configured the services appropriately for how they intended to operate.
Once we had the environment ready to go, we migrated the existing mailboxes and files from Google to Microsoft Exchange and some to OneDrive for Business temporarily. Once all moved over, we made sure all the configuration was correct so that 3rd party services such as Mail Chimp were authorised to send emails on behalf of Contingent Works.
We setup a portal so that each member of staff has a single web page to visit to access email, files, information and messages from any device in or out of the office. This has become the hub for the team to interact and handle the day-to-day operation of the business.
Using Yammer, the team can leave and respond to messages ensuring everyone is kept informed of issues and tasks.
Microsoft Teams was configured and an existing 3rd party solution, used for organising the reception desk rota was replaced with Microsoft Teams Shifts.
The result
Contingent Works now have a structured Microsoft 365 environment that can handle all the tasks they need. This has replaced the requirement for multiple cloud services which increases their security position by reducing the number of accounts each team member needs.
The new portal built on SharePoint Online makes information easy to find wherever they are and can be extended in future with different functionality as the need arises. Files used by all team members were moved here with more personal documents being stored in each users OneDrive for Business site.
The move to Microsoft Exchange and subsequent configuration by us, not only protects email messages but reduces the risk of emails ending up in customers and partners spam or junk folders.
The introduction of Microsoft Teams shifts has reduced the overhead on creating and distributing staff schedules and Microsoft Teams itself is used by staff to communicate with each other from desktop and mobile devices.
Finally, to reduce the need for administration even further, all users are setup with the ability to change their own password and even sign in using mobile devices instead.
“The Red Manta team could not be more knowledgable and helpful. We all fear moving from one system to another but our leap from Google to 365 was nearly seamless. Now discovering the power and flexibility of how the rest of the Microsoft suite can help our business.“
– Ewan Buck, Cofounder, Contingent Works
Can we help you?
Do you see similar issues for your organisation in this case study? Do you want to:
- Save money
- Work from anywhere
- Work smarter
- Improve collaboration
- Protect your business
