...Award Winning Business ISP Enables Recruitment Agency To Work Out Of Virtual Offices
Datanet, the UK’s leading Business ISP today announced a new agreement with Consult Ltd – a specialist Human Resource recruitment consultancy. Datanet has implemented and is now managing a secure virtual private network (VPN) for Consult Ltd, allowing employees to access its system both in the office and remotely.
Consult Ltd, based in a 200 year-old listed building in rural Hampshire has clients including Pepsi Co, Royal Bank of Scotland and London Transport. In addition to the 13 who work out of its headquarters, the company employs consultants nationwide.
Recruitment agencies are bound by the Employment Agencies Act to make a declaration to all candidates that they will be prudent with the candidate’s information. “Ensuring that the data is held securely is absolutely essential in our business as we are dealing with confidential and personal information,” said Consult’s IT Director Alan Shields.
Due to the often-sensitive nature of the business, contact with clients and candidates occur in a variety of locations such as hotel lobbies and private meeting rooms. In locations such as these, consultants access the office’s network through wireless access points.
All of Consult’s offices are connected via a wide area network with the remote working consultants having broadband access at home allowing them to connect to the office via a secure virtual private network (VPN). “We are very much a virtual workforce,” explains Shields. “Consultants can log into email and access a comprehensive database which is updated in real time.”
Consult used to be with big name ISP, PIPEX but decided that it was beneficial to go with a smaller provider who could better understand its needs as a company. It turned to Datanet for a solution, which has now installed 2 Mpbs ADSL broadband in Consult’s offices and 512 kbits broadband at our consultants’ home offices. To ensure a secure connection it has firewalls on both the entry to the office network and on the consultant’s laptops themselves.
Datanet's broadband service, DataDSL, is a fully firewall secure multi-user service for the business user, who requires high-speed broadband connectivity offering industry-leading speeds of connection to suit the individual needs of its customers.
“Consult’s business processes is built firmly upon the need for its consultants to gain access to its servers wherever their location,” said Datanet MD Conleth McCallan. “Datanet has enabled this through the implementation and management of fast and secure broadband connections throughout its offices.”
“When we call Datanet it instantly knows who we are and is responsive to our needs,” added Shields. “The technical support personnel are second to none and show a great understanding of the importance of the infrastructure to our bottom line.”
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