The life of working at a small-medium business is hectic. Life at Abbeydale Building Environment Consultants is no different, but using technology to their advantage has helped them mine success by eliminating wasted time and streamlining their collaboration.
Small team, huge impact
The life of working at a small-medium business is hectic. You wear multiple different hats on multiple different projects all before you’ve finished your coffee. Life at Abbeydale Building Environment Consultants is no different, but using technology to their advantage has helped them mine success by eliminating wasted time and streamlining their collaboration.
Abbeydale Building Environment Consultants, or Abbeydale BEC for short, was formed in 1993 and has grown to become a small team of geotechnical and environmental consultants. Offering desk studies, site investigation, gas monitoring, slope stability, flood risk assessments and more, they carved out a niche with small-medium business developers, architects, and structural engineers looking to build primarily housing and industrial premises.
Being a part of the construction, engineering and field services industry, they know the emphasis within these industries of having partners that are efficient, effective and capable of handling the day-to-day control of their role on projects. It is because of these traits that Abbeydale BEC has become a trusted partner for many people, including a number of local authorities within the field of highway design and associated development issues. As with any project, keeping progress on pace is a necessity. It can be the difference between making profits or breaking even and for Abbeydale, it could mean getting hired again in the future or not. Each project is an opportunity to put their best foot forward and showcase the quality of work their team is capable of doing.
Masters of their own domain
As a small business themselves, Abbeydale BEC knows the life of covering as much ground as possible every day on projects. In order to do this, they know each employee has to feel empowered and capable of being in control of every aspect of their day-to-day work – including the tools they use. As many companies do, Abbeydale BEC gave each of their employees a Windows computer during their onboarding so that each member of the team had access to the same hardware, software and programs, but over time cracks began to form.
Abbeydale noticed that slowly but surely every device became outdated which meant that they were opening themselves up to security threats. Without a dedicated IT department to assist in this, the responsibility would have fallen to the individual user to update their computer, but employees felt a lot of pressure that they may cause problems or harm to their devices if they made updates. No one had professional IT experience which meant none felt comfortably in control of their own devices.
As GDPR regulations took effect and expectations around security were increased, Abbeydale BEC knew they had a responsibility to keep their company and client’s information secure. Having sensitive client information, job site information and planning/purchasing data on devices that weren’t up to date wasn’t going to suffice. Abbeydale BEC knew something had to change. They were due for a refresh on their technology and needed to enable their team to feel comfortable with their devices, relieving the pressure they were feeling of day-to-day device management.
[Jamf Now has] given me a lot of confidence that we have the necessary management and security in place for our devices. It also gives the users a lot of confidence when they are using their devices.
Progress is only possible with change
Rick Saville, a Director at Abbeydale BEC, recognized the needs of the team and, with no professional IT experience, took it upon himself to investigate how to make the most of their next investment into technology. He needed to make sure they could offer employees the best hardware available and a suite of tools and software that would allow each team member to produce their best work, all while giving Abbeydale BEC an easy way to keep each of the devices up to date and secure.
As he began his research, it became clear to him that a system based around Apple’s Mac offered him the ability to easily keep devices updated through free OS Updates, leverage Apple’s native security for GDPR compliance, give the team access to the entire App Store full of tools and apps and was a set up that Rick was already very familiar with in his personal use. He just needed to find out how to accomplish all his other goals and learn the best practices for rolling them out and managing them day-to-day within a commercial setting. For that, he turned to his Apple Retail Store and their Apple Business Team.
Working with the Apple Business Team, Rick began his plans for Abbeydale BEC’s new Mac-based tech plan and was introduced to mobile device management (MDM) and Jamf Now. His Apple Business Team Rep showed him how, through MDM, he would be able to do a lot of things he was looking to do from a central location – all without manually intervening or relying on his team to perform these tasks. They also discussed that by choosing Jamf Now as their MDM provider, they would get an MDM platform built specifically for small businesses and Apple devices. Jamf Now gives anyone the ability to succeed with Apple devices without needing the same level of IT “know-how” that a robust, enterprise-level platform demands. “The decision to select Jamf Now was easy after learning it was built for Apple-focused environments and small businesses, but it was even easier after being told Apple, themselves, use Jamf for their own device management needs.”
Success through digital transformation
After nearly twelve months using Mac with MDM, Rick can comfortably say he is sold on the ease and power of Jamf Now. Even with only six devices at present, five iMac and one MacBook, Rick quickly saw the value of managing them through Jamf Now instead of manually. “[Jamf Now has] given me a lot of confidence that we have the necessary management and security in place for our devices. It also gives the users a lot of confidence when they are using their devices.” That management, security and confidence is exactly what Rick set out to provide for Abbeydale BEC.
Since creating their MDM foundation and enrolling their new Mac devices in Jamf Now, Rick is able to make sure each iMac and MacBook is up to date and secure, taking a lot of pressure off of employees to make sure they aren’t doing anything wrong on their devices unknowingly. With access to the App Store, Abbeydale BEC can offer their team a wide range of apps and tools to work with and because devices are enrolled in Jamf Now, Rick can make sure the apps are uniform across all devices. By doing this, he can ensure each app is properly vetted to meet GDPR compliance and security requirements.
Nowadays at Abbeydale, each device remains up to date with the latest Operating System using Jamf Now’s ability to remotely upgrade devices. And each computer has a specific Blueprint set up on it to ensure each employee is enabled with the right software, without having them worry about searching and downloading apps on their own.
Rick remains the only person at Abbeydale that manages Jamf Now and has gladly championed that role to help the team find success. Because of Apple and Jamf Now, every need they were looking for with their tech refresh plan is being met and he has created a foundation for scaling with their growth. Rick revels in Jamf Now’s ease adding “It’s also a massive time savings. I can do everything I need to quickly from anywhere.”
It is because of this ease and ability to manage from anywhere that Rick is already looking into adding iOS and iPad devices to their ecosystem so each employee can digitize findings and reports right from their job sites, “The cost and environmental savings of not having to print from the office would be great”, and Rick knows he doesn’t have to worry about data loss if a device should get damaged or be stolen. He can simply lock down the device until it is recovered, or it needs to be wiped. “It truly has been ‘set it and forget it’. I’d recommend Jamf Now to anyone that would listen to me talk about it.”
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