An

Assembly really understand

how recruitment & professional
services rms operate and
the unique challenges they face.

From device to data centre, were right there with you.

Case Study

Victor de la Flor
FD, Sereia

Sereia
The Client
Sereia is a boutique recruitment advisory rm based in
London and with consultants in New York, Cape Town &
Brisbane. Pioneering a collaborative partnership model with
its clients, Sereia provides not only a bespoke recruitment
process but also data-driven insight into cost reduction and
resource optimisation.

Having established itself in an ultra-competitive global

market, Sereia had grown rapidly and had plans for further
international expansion. In two years the company had
doubled in size to 16 consultants, largely due to a growing
reputation for delivering high quality candidates combined
with a consultative approach to client relationships.

The Challenge
Sereias management team knew that in the recruitment & professional services space, success had to be leveraged in order
to remain competitive and a strategic plan to double the size of the company again within 18 months was agreed. The one
challenge with this plan was the lack of a central IT function, as support services were ad-hoc and from several dierent
suppliers, none of whom seemed capable of enabling Sereia to take full advantage of technology in driving the business
forward. In 2015 Sereia approached Assembly Managed Services to see if we could help.
The consultants in Cape Town, Brisbane & New York had all been allowed to source their own IT services and support,
resulting in the company struggling to manage any sort of overall uniformity of service. Lack of accountability was a major
issue, with countless valuable management hours being wasted liaising with disinterested helpdesks. There was a loss of faith
in these providers to even resolve routine issues, let alone roll-out the new services that Sereia knew they needed.

We were really keen to push ahead

with a more holistic, light-touch IT model.
We were keen to embrace the cloud and
enable our guys to work as exibly as possible.
Unfortunately, we had lost all condence
in the skills and even the interest of our
current IT suppliers and we knew we
had to make a change.
Victor de la Flor
FD, Sereia

Chancery House 53-64 Chancery Lane London WC2A 1QU

020 3795 6880

www.assemblymanaged.co.uk

Sereia

An

Case Study
Straight away, the frustration that Victor and his team
felt at how their progress was being held back was
almost tangible. We barely even talked about IT in our rst
meeting - it felt more important to let them know we were
listening, and that we wanted to help them get to where
they deserved to be.
Gerard Brett
Director, Assembly Managed Services

The Solution

The Process

Sereia were keen to have a light-touch, exible solution that

would allow consultants to switch between laptops and
mobile devices seamlessly. The nature of their business, and
the global spread of their team meant that a cloud-based
Unied Communications platform was the obvious choice.
The Assembly solutions consultants began scoping and
designing this, with email and CRM integration to be hosted
and centrally managed in the UK.

Ad-hoc support services were replaced by a centralised

support function via Assemblys 24/7/365 service desk, with
established local partners providing on-site support in each
territory. Once this was in place, the Unied
Communications solution was deployed in Assemblys UK
data centre. Training for Sereias sta was carried out in
London with web-based training for Brisbane, New York &
Capetown.

The management team wanted to avoid the endless,

inecient paperwork it had endured with previous suppliers,
so Assembly designed a standardised model for future
oces to minimise administration and unify contracts and
billing. This incorporated set-specication mobile devices,
laptops and connectivity solutions alongside easily-scalable
CRM and other software licensing.

At the same time, our connectivity team carried out a review

of all Sereias third party services. This included the technical
& commercial negotiation of improved and unied
connectivity solutions, SIP and voice/video services to
ensure high availability of Sereias new UC platform. Finally,
the new CRM was deployed on Assemblys cloud platform
and integrated into the overall solution.

Wed had a bad experience, and this had

made us a little bit cynical about IT companies
delivering what they promised. Assembly were
very conscious of this, and went out of their way
to restore our faith in IT. They made the whole
process seem eortless, which felt remarkable
given the headaches wed had previously.
Victor de la Flor
FD, Sereia

The Results
Sereia now has a stable, scalable IT infrastructure network which is light-touch and requires minimal management. The
upgraded connectivity at all sites, combined with the alignment of sta devices with the new Unied Communications
platform means that Sereias consultants have all the tools they need to succeed. The company has a unied support &
services function for the rst time, cutting administration time and costs. Faith in IT as a business enabler has been
restored across the company.
Placing the core infrastructure in Assemblys data centre has kept hardware and maintenance costs low and the overall
solution enables Sereia to be extremely agile and responsive. The standardised model for new oce roll-outs gives the
management team the ability to plan and budget for future growth with condence.

Chancery House 53-64 Chancery Lane London WC2A 1QU

020 3795 6880

www.assemblymanaged.co.uk