Life Cycle has experienced significant growth over the last few years and reached a key milestone of £1m turnover, which brings higher expectations on the organisation, particularly on its internal IT systems. It initiated a digital transformation programme, to include a new website, bespoke systems but particularly updating its day-to-day IT office ecosystem.

“We had been using a platform with local storage and no remote working capability, which didn’t meet our multi-location and hybrid working requirements and wasn’t going to be able to grow with our organisation.”

Becky Whitlock, Marketing Manager at Life Cycle.

Life Cycle has a complex business model, with many different projects and services operated from 3 sites by full and part time staff working at office locations and remotely, including from a prison where inmates are provided with training to assist their rehabilitation. A solution was required which would enable all areas of the organisation to share information and documents and collaborate effectively.

In line with its mission statement, Life Cycle is planning for more growth to enable it to reach more people, which requires systems that are sustainable and will grow with the organisation.

Following a rigorous assessment process, Codestone was selected to implement Microsoft 365 and to provide on-going support for all aspects of the solution. “Our conversations with Codestone gave us the confidence they were able to help us transition from our legacy systems to the Microsoft 365 environment and work collaboratively with us to solve the problems that were holding us back,” says Becky. “An early example was a tricky upgrade of the anti-virus software on all our devices, where Codestone ensured a successful outcome and properly documented everything so subsequent updates would be easier.”

Codestone assisted Life Cycle to transition to an organisation-wide Microsoft 365 environment, providing a cloud solution for collaborative and remote working as well as a robust, secure and easy-to-upgrade platform supporting a wide variety of functions. The Microsoft 365 solution enables Life Cycle’s hybrid workforce to access a single source of truth across the organisation from any location or device. Processes have now been standardised, improving efficiency and reducing errors and manual tasks, whilst maintaining a high level of security.

Life Cycle opted for Codestone’s support package which keeps the environment available at all times and equips the organisation with up-to-date versions of the software through regular updates.

“We still have face-to-face meetings, but I feel I can do my job just as well remotely if I need to,” says Becky. “With our geographical spread across a number of locations and a workforce with part-time, full-time, office-based and remote workers it provides a very effective virtual workplace.”

It was vital that the chosen solution provided the capability to scale as the charity grows and helps more people. Microsoft 365, together with Codestone’s support delivers that confidence and reassurance that it will keep pace with the planned growth.

“Codestone’s diverse client list and wide experience in delivering and supporting Microsoft 365 environments gives us the confidence they will be able to support us in the future as we continue to grow in size and impact.” Says Becky. “We now have the consistency, scalability, streamlining and security we needed.”