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D&M Group enjoy DMS ‘straight talking’ service 

THE CLIENT

The D&M Group started life as Design and Management Contractors in the 1960s to ‘Design and Manage’ refurbishment works in the southeast. Over the years the company grew, expanding its range of disciplines to include building, electrical and plumbing and, in 2004, air conditioning and mechanical services. It is now a leading general maintenance company serving thousands of sites, with clients including Virgin Media, Marks and Spencer, Greene King, JD Sports, and the Priory Group.  

IT management services 

In addition to over 50 mobile operatives, D&M has 35 staff at its head office. The group runs with a MS Office 365 infrastructure that DMS manages via Azure datacentres in the cloud, with a single server remaining on-site, primarily for user authentication. The office applications are in constant use at D&M; heavy duty apps are also used, such as Adobe Creative Suite and industry specific AutoCAD, available from the cloud for fast access to any workstation with a licenced user logged in.  
Recovery IT Consultancy

24/7 monitoring 

For peace of mind and continuity of service, DMS continually monitors D&M’s network for technical glitches and challenges to its security. The FortiGate next generation firewall, an industry leader favoured by DMS, provides high visibility, control and protection against evolving cyber threats. 

Data backup and recovery

Data backup in Azure is automated under MS protocols with DMS using MS tools for fast data recovery, with minimal loss and disruption, should a breach of security involving data theft occur. D&M’s Head of IT David Goodwin recalls an issue in early 2023, “The power supply in our on-site server failed causing a crash which took everyone down. We were up and running again in less than an hour from Azure, with no data loss or lasting damage”.  

Keeping it simple

Many of D&M’s office staff, especially on the helpdesk, are experienced and knowledgeable builders, plumbers and electricians who don’t all have the IT skills that their younger colleagues grew up with. DMS has been instrumental in simplifying the interfaces for them, so they can focus on delivering first class assistance without being frustrated by the system.  

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    Coping through lockdown 

    When the Covid lockdown came into force in 2020, DMS had just finished migrating the D&M network to the Cloud and completed an upgrade to SharePoint and OneDrive. Previously, back-ups were on-site, plus replication to a server at the DMS offices. It was very fortunate, as D&M was able to adopt home and hybrid work practices straight away, with no impact on their clients.  
    David remembers lockdown well “The DMS support at this time was exceptional, helping us to move seamlessly to remote working, shielding the powerful SharePoint system with the more familiar OneDrive desktop for our less IT literate users.  Although some clients required fewer callouts as their business slowed, others grew. Our support for Virgin Media for instance, shot up with increased demand for home working and home entertainment.  Support for care homes presented a huge challenge and DMS’ service management software was key to this work; it recorded the last case of Covid recorded on each site and the test (then vaccination) status of each operative. The system showed us where it was safe to work; without it, we would have struggled to service the 120+ care sites on our books”. 

    A straight talking relationship 

    David is the link between the D&M Group and DMS. His IT background makes him the first port of call for day to day staff queries, referring them to DMS where needed. “One of the things I like about the DMS staff is that they don’t do ‘technospeak’, they understand the needs of the user, and that some aren’t as IT literate as others. They explain things in plain English, which saves so much time and means staff are comfortable calling them; they know their questions will be heard and they’ll be able to understand the answers!”    I like the way they blood new engineers too, giving them sufficient ownership of situations to grow but with more experienced staff to refer to as required. In all cases, the ‘customer first’ DMS ethos shows through.    I often know what I want our systems to achieve, DMS will make it a reality without compromise. The nature of our business means that we need to provide a service 24/7. The staff at DMS are like an extension of our business, available and willing to help 24/7 too”.