Wogen Resources
“Zenzero have brought a wealth of experience with them particularly working with SMEs like us.”
IT Development Manager, Wogen Resources.
About Wogen Resources
Wogen Resources trade in exotic metals and minerals internationally. While they maintain a large presence in China and have three offices there, their headquarters are in Central London where it has been since they were founded 40 years ago. Since they were in established in 1972, they have grown to become one of the most diversified traders in high-value raw materials to non-ferrous industry. As a specialist they cover the entire supply chain with materials such Antimony to Zirconium. Their dynamic and expert trading team support their global customers and includes the provision of supply and demand services.
The goal
Trading and shipping materials are both high intensity and competitive in the industry and any bottlenecks in the IT environment creates a huge amount of frustration and instability for the organisation and staff. Prior to partnering with Zenzero, Wogen had been working with another supplier to put in place a serverless system. This needed to support their international business and could be accessed remotely at any time. Performance is crucial to Wogen, they required minimal downtime while they investigated and put in place, a Desktop as a Service (Daas)* solution. Unfortunately, after a 2–3-year period of working with their previous supplier, they were not happy with the results and the solution was not providing what their employees needed to succeed. It was slow and ineffective and causing a huge amount of irritation to its users.
*DaaS can also be referred to as a Secure Hosted Desktop solution, for the purpose of the case study we have used DaaS throughout for clarity.
The solution
After 2-3 years of their previous supplier trying to create the solution that they required, they came to the joint solution to dissolve their partnership. It was decided that the supplier was not able to deliver what was needed and were happy to hand the project to Zenzero. We spent time working with Wogen to understand how their ideal solution would look and what software would support their vision. Our deep knowledge within the Zenzero team enabled us to investigate their IT environment and the way in which their team used their systems. After a period of trialling solutions and partnering with Wogen, we were able to recommend a customised DaaS process that was flexible and scalable. A benefit that they saw in collaborating with Zenzero was the lack of rigidity in our approach, the skill set that we boast which enables creating bespoke models rather than pointing them to an ‘off the shelf’ solution. As part of the process, we prepared the environment, discussed implementation, rolled out a prototype and when all parties were happy, we put the solution in place for all users.
Why did we offer a DaaS solution?
We were confident in the knowledge both parties could operate from and had open and fluid collaboration while working towards the right solution. Having a period in which we could test ideas was imperative in finding a solution that would work long term while being scalable for their business. Both parties had the freedom to push back when needed and communication was transparent during the 6-month period of working on this project together.
How did it help?
DaaS was the right option for Wogen as compared to onsite infrastructure, it is infinitely flexible. Part of their issue with their existing cloud provider was its lack of capability. They feared, until working with Zenzero, that they would need to return to an onsite solution. The previous system was rigid and unreliable it was, it failed to serve its purpose and be beneficial for the whole business based in different geographical locations. It was also ideal for a business such as Wogen who trade materials which has a huge number of variable costs, DaaS is easy to budget and scale according to licenses or members of staff they have. This was advantageous to Wogen as they were concerned about having to hold hardware in case of new joiners or scaling. With DaaS there is no need to have additional hardware in preparation.
What were the positive outcomes?
Since the implementation of DaaS from Zenzero, Wogen have noted that user experience has improved. Zenzero credits part of that being due to the exploratory phase where they consulted with many of the users to understand how their system was working and what it lacked. They saw a wealth of benefits from being able to cut third-party involvement, they were previously having trouble and experiencing blockages through waiting for multiple responses from different suppliers to make decisions. Their IT Development Manager also told us that they were impressed with how technically knowledgeable our service team staff are and that every effort is made to ensure that the customer is happy. Their uptime has also been exemplary from Zenzero since Wogen became a customer.
A unique key feature of our solution was access to the line of business system and the trading system in a centralised solution where all users can access and collaborate in one place. Zenzero’s overall strength has been introducing innovative technology with regular testing to combat maturing technology.
The future for Wogen and Zenzero
As part of our ongoing relationship with Wogen, there is a regular catch up between the IT Developer and the Zenzero Account Manager. During these calls we can discuss DaaS, our ongoing IT support or any other projects that they have interest in exploring. We maintain the DaaS solution at Zenzero by looking at the system remotely along with regular reporting. This helps us keep a close eye on the solutions and spot any potential issues before they arise in a proactive manner. Other ongoing projects that Wogen and Zenzero are working on includes their security and a whole refresh of their building cabling. We look for ways in which we can improve users experience by offering new options for their workstations. They recently adopted ultra-wide screens from Zenzero which we recommended after seeing how heavy their usage of Microsoft Excel was.
Since Wogen joined us as a customer, we have been passionate about optimising their environment as well as their workspace. Zenzero can act as their one point of contact, removing the third-party issues they were having. We’re able to offer them targeted support through our understanding of their entire system. They have experienced significant improvement in the resolution of their IT issues as a result. Due to the size of Zenzero and the number of customers they have across varied industries and sectors we can support our customers as if they were in an enterprise environment despite what size their company has. Our service desk will answer calls and enquiries for all our customers quickly and offer resolutions. We can offer our experience on a personalised basis without the cost, making our customers feel as if they have their own in-house IT team.