Managed IT support and network modernisation for a Melbourne electrical engineering firm
A 100-person electrical engineering firm in Melbourne came to us with ageing network infrastructure, a SharePoint environment that was slowing every computer in the business, and no consistent IT support behind any of it. We brought them onto our managed support and security services, rebuilt the network across all sites, restructured SharePoint properly, and aligned the business with the SMB1001 cybersecurity standard. The firm now runs on infrastructure that supports its growth plans instead of holding them back.
The challenge
The firm had never had managed IT support. Everything ran on ad-hoc services, and the experience had been poor enough that staff had stopped asking for help. Problems were quietly worked around instead of reported. There was no strategic plan, no roadmap, and no consistent support experience.
The network itself had aged into an operational risk. It was causing interruptions to daily work, posed a cybersecurity risk, and stood in the way of growth plans that needed modern, managed infrastructure behind them.
SharePoint was the problem staff felt most. An old file server had been lifted and shifted into SharePoint Online with no restructure, leaving more than 900,000 items syncing in a single document library. Sync broke constantly. New computer setups took far longer than they should have. Every machine was weighed down syncing files, scanning them with antivirus, and indexing them for search, and performance suffered across the board. With no security segmentation between document libraries, staff also had access to far more data than they needed.
Underneath it all sat little in the way of security standards: limited and inconsistent written policies, and very few technical controls.
What we did
We started with our onboarding audit, documenting every system, reviewing access control, and aligning the firm's IT processes with best practice. We also ran a staff questionnaire. When people have given up on IT support, the real issues don't show up in a ticket queue, and the questionnaire surfaced a long list of problems staff had been sitting on.
From there, the firm came onto our full managed IT support and security services, with support available 8:30am to 5:30pm, Monday to Friday. We delivered a 12-month technology roadmap and budget so leadership could see exactly what was planned and what it would cost.
The network was upgraded across all sites. Cisco Meraki MX security appliances went in at the edge, with an MFA-enforced SAML VPN for remote access and site-to-site VPNs connecting the offices. We designed proper network segmentation using UniFi hardware, which kept costs reasonable while improving security, reducing risk, and preparing the network for internal changes the client already had planned, including a secure staging network for their internal development work. The upgrade also retired some genuine museum pieces, including a network hub from 1999 still in daily service. The legacy CCTV network it supported now runs on its own isolated VLAN, unable to reach anything else.
SharePoint was migrated properly this time. Old data was archived to online-only locations, and the single overloaded library was separated into departmental sites with security segmentation matched to who actually needed access. A new SharePoint homepage gave staff clean navigation.
Finally, we introduced security standards and principles in line with SMB1001, bringing the firm up to date with Conditional Access policies, Microsoft Intune device management, and alignment with SMB1001 Gold.
The results
The daily friction is gone. With the SharePoint migration done properly, computers are no longer bogged down syncing, scanning, and indexing 900,000 files, and local performance improved significantly. The odd latency issues that caused daily sync problems disappeared with the network upgrade. The firm now has proper control of its data and can keep growing without SharePoint dragging performance down.
Operational and cybersecurity risk both reduced substantially, and there is now a clear roadmap covering network asset lifecycles, so nothing ages into a crisis again. Site-to-site VPNs removed the friction of reaching internal resources, and the secure staging network means internal development work can happen safely.
The change staff noticed most was the support itself. Fast response times, engineers who know their sites, and advanced expertise on demand rebuilt confidence that day-to-day issues would be fixed and long-term changes were planned for. For a team that had given up on asking for IT help, that was the biggest shift of all.
Questions this project raised
Why does SharePoint keep breaking or syncing slowly?
The most common cause is too many files syncing to each computer. When a file server is moved into SharePoint Online without restructuring, staff can end up syncing hundreds of thousands of items, and every machine slows down handling sync, antivirus scanning, and search indexing. The fix is restructuring into smaller departmental sites and moving old data to online-only storage.
How many files is too many in a SharePoint library?
Microsoft recommends keeping synced content well under 300,000 items per computer, and performance problems usually appear long before that. The client in this case study had over 900,000 items in a single library, which caused daily sync failures across the business.
What is SMB1001?
SMB1001 is a tiered cybersecurity standard designed specifically for small and medium businesses, maintained by Dynamic Standards International. It aligns with the Australian Essential Eight and provides a practical, certifiable path to stronger security without the overhead of jumping straight to ISO 27001.
Is managed IT support worth it compared to ad-hoc support?
Ad-hoc support fixes individual problems but leaves nobody responsible for the overall environment, so risks accumulate and staff stop reporting issues. Managed support adds proactive monitoring, a roadmap, and consistent response times, which is usually cheaper than the downtime ad-hoc arrangements quietly cost.
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