Prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, ISKU, a leading furniture design and manufacturing company in Finland, was in the midst of a major bidding process to choose an IT service provider that could provide robust end user support and Microsoft Azure cloud management services. In business for 91 years, the company wanted to drive greater efficiencies, innovation and cost savings across its business.
Rapid business changes resulting from the pandemic, however, coupled with increased competition, generated challenges in terms of the bidding process. New budget constraints, the impact of COVID-19 on current bidders, and the increased need to keep and gain new customers amidst a sudden economic downturn made the continuation of the bidding process problematic.
An innovative solution for progressing the work
Working with ISKU for the past 17 years, CGI was among the bidders for the company’s new infrastructure services contract. CGI had been delivering a range of services to ISKU, including enterprise resource planning systems, infrastructure services, robotic process automation, e-commerce and integration services.
With a deep understanding of ISKU’s business and the new bidding challenges it faced, CGI contacted the company to offer an innovative solution for progressing the project, one that takes into account ISKU’s changing business circumstances. CGI proposed a managed services approach that leverages, among other things, cloud-ready solutions and remote work to drive business agility, supply chain modernization and significant cost improvements. For example, the approach minimizes the use of onsite services by enabling remote implementation of key infrastructure through CGI’s global delivery model.
Overall, the approach offered ISKU reconfigured IT services that are more modern and efficient than the competition. With an approach that took into account its changed financial situation and service needs, ISKU moved forward with the project, signing an infrastructure service contract with CGI within two weeks.
Rebounding and reinventing with robust end user and Microsoft Azure services
In April 2020, CGI began a 3-year contract to deliver a suite of services that includes user and application support (single point of contact), terminal and device life cycle services, and Azure-based platform management services within a hybrid cloud environment. The suite also includes terminal and platform security services. In addition to cost savings of between 15-25%, depending on the services, ISKU is benefitting from advanced IT infrastructure services that will help it offset the effects of the pandemic, move ahead of its competition, and continue its nearly 100-year legacy of providing outstanding quality and service to its customers.
