Datapac rolls out cloud productivity to 36 Eircom/Meteor stores

16 Jul 2014

Martin O'Connor, business development manager, Datapac; Damien Lynch, IT manager, Synchro Solutions; and Patrick Kickham, director, Datapac

IT services player Datapac has deployed Microsoft Office 365 technology to Eircom partner Synchrio Solutions and 36 Eircom/Meteor stores around Ireland.

Synchro Solutions is an Irish-owned business which assists in the development and management of the branded store chain Eircom/Meteor.

The business provides ICT infrastructure, point-of-sales systems, telecommunications stock, marketing materials and all of the services that its network of retailers need to run their store effectively. Synchro owns 12 of the stores across Ireland, and has franchised and helps manage a further 24 stores.

Due to an increasing volume of data being created and stored, Synchro was reaching capacity on its central server in its head office in Cherrywood, Dublin. The data, much of which was email, was putting the server in danger of failing and potentially causing downtime and loss of service for employees and dealers around the country. 

Datapac provided a cloud-based service, Microsoft Office 365, to overcome the capacity and reliability issues. It also enables seamless growth as the service can be easily deployed and scaled, adding new stores and employees to the network in a matter of hours.

Remote collaboration

Martin O’Connor, business development manager, Datapac, said Microsoft SharePoint Online and Lync Online have also been implemented for the employees at head office.

Employees can remotely collaborate on documents in real-time through SharePoint and Lync is being used to deliver training webinars to dealers.

Since the implementation of Microsoft Office 365, the IT team has experienced a 50pc reduction in calls from employees and stores with email issues.

The guaranteed 99.999pc uptime with Exchange Online is protecting business continuity.

“The solution provides us with a very reliable and flexible communications platform which helps us to seamlessly grow our network of stores throughout Ireland,” said Damien Lynch, IT manager of Synchrio Solutions.

“We also need to be as connected as possible with our colleagues and dealers, and Office 365 gives us the ability to do this in an effective and simple way.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com