A garage that can work anywhere, even when the internet goes down

The challenge

At Vakgarage De Liesbosch, IT was handled by an external person. He often had no time, so questions and solutions took a long time. The garage used products meant for home use, and the business data was stored on its own server on the premises.

The biggest problem was Carsys, the software the garage runs on. It was installed on one workstation, and the other PCs connected to it. That connection dropped out regularly. The PCs then had to be restarted before everyone could carry on. “When you have a customer at the counter, you don’t want to have to restart your computer first,” says Cliff Goudswaard.

Our approach

We moved the garage to Microsoft 365. The business data is now stored securely in the Microsoft cloud, instead of on a server on the premises. On top of that, we back up Microsoft 365: a spare copy at another location, fully encrypted and in line with current standards.

We also moved Carsys to the cloud. It no longer depends on one workstation, and staff can work with it wherever they are.

Finally, we added a 5G connection as a backup for the internet. If the regular internet connection fails, work simply carries on. “We would never have thought of that ourselves,” says Cliff, “but it does give peace of mind.”

The result

Carsys runs reliably and the PCs no longer need restarting. The business data is stored securely and there is always a spare copy. And because everything is in the cloud and there is a backup internet connection, the garage can keep working, even when the regular connection goes down.

Security has also improved considerably, and that can be measured. Microsoft gives every company that uses Microsoft 365 a security score: the Secure Score. The higher the score, the better your data and accounts are protected. At Vakgarage De Liesbosch, the score went from 37% to 86%.

“If I have a question, I call NSO and it gets picked up,” says Cliff. “That is quite different from before.”