As its IT requirements increased, Handling Truck Services turned to Thinc. Our managed services and Sage 200 support have eased the pressure on internal teams and enabled true modernisation.
For decades, Handling Truck Services has been providing forklift solutions to businesses in the Bedfordshire region. From its headquarters in Luton, the company provides sales, hire, parts, repair and maintenance, all delivered by its trusted team of skilled and certified engineers.
For Paul Liscio, Handling Truck Services is in the blood. A member of the family that owns the business, he joined the team 18 years ago, working his way up to Director – a post he’s held for almost seven years.
Paul has seen the company grow steadily, and with that, the need to modernise. He smiles as he remembers the early set-up, built up of old network cables and metal couplings, where you’d need to access a particular computer to get online or print a document.
“For smaller companies like ours, an older setup isn’t uncommon,” he says. “The mindset is often: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
However, as the company scaled up, it moved into bigger premises, and new systems were required – which shone a light on their capacity to manage their IT. One of the accounts team at the time had helped put a basic setup in place, but Paul was conscious that, with the business’ reliance on technology increasing, this would not be sustainable.
“Very quickly, we thought: we need a bit of help, here,” explains Paul. “I wanted to outsource some of our IT so that, if there’s a problem, it can’t just be on the accounts guy. If he’s off for a week, what would we do?”
More than just easing responsibility and risk, there was a growing imperative to move into a more modern way of operating.
Paul remembers his uncle taking daily backups of the company data, and knew there must be a simpler way. The company was now at a point where it was ready to move away from a patchwork of separate systems and machines to a modern, networked workplace.
The team reviewed a number of managed service providers before settling on Thinc, choosing us for our breadth of IT support services and our expertise in Sage software. We helped them migrate from their older Sage solution to Sage 200 Professional and integrated it with their Protean job management software.
Since then, we’ve modernised the whole IT infrastructure at Handling Truck Services. We upgraded and consolidated the server set-up, enabling remote backups – no more manual work at the end of the day.
In addition to providing support for Sage 200 Professional, we rolled out the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity and communication tools. Hybrid working, a necessity during the Covid pandemic but now a useful, flexible option, is enabled by remote desktops.
As the company’s ways of working became more digital, we’ve optimised connectivity across the building, and brought security and reliability to their network with best-in-class cyber security and backup solutions from CrowdStrike, SonicWall and Arcserve.
Alongside these implementations and upgrades has been support that’s just an email or phone call away. “I can’t speak highly enough of the support,” says Paul.
“It makes everything simpler. In the past, if I needed to bring a new recruit into the business, we’d need to get them set up on multiple systems. I now just ask the team at Thinc and the laptop arrives with all the relevant permissions. Or if we need a new piece of software or hardware, we don’t have to spend time researching which is best – we can ask Thinc, who’ll give us an expert opinion on what will be the right fit.”
The biggest benefit for Paul has been peace of mind, particularly around business continuity.
“My biggest worry was that if I’m on holiday, and there’s nobody else who understands the IT, what happens then? Or if somebody comes in early and a computer or printer isn’t working, will they have to wait for me to take action?
“So, to be able to have a system where someone outside knows our system inside out, and if there is a problem, there is a number to call – that’s reassuring,” he says.
“There’s also peace of mind that if there was a major interruption to the business, we have offsite backup and remote desktops – we could quickly pick things up elsewhere. That’s such a big help.”
Earning the trust of Paul and the Handling Truck Services team is something we’re especially proud of Thinc. Close, embedded relationships like this are what we do best, and we hope to continue along Paul’s side as the business continues to grow.
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