Aspire to Move

Aspire to Move is a brand new letting agency operating in the Bath area. The two directors have plenty of experience in the industry, but setting up on their own has meant they need to look at aspects of business that they haven't considered previously - including IT set-up.

Start-up IT advice

Getting the best advice when you are starting a new venture is paramount to success. When the directors at Aspire to Move contacted Clearwater IT, we listened to their requirements and were able to provide advice and a quote based on their needs. We also kept business growth in mind when speccing out solutions for their new hardware and SaaS requirements.

Hardware supply

Clearwater IT supplied two lightweight but powerful business-class laptops for the directors. This was combined with two sets of monitors, USB-C docking stations and peripherals for when they are working in the office and need some additional screen real-estate. This combination gives them the best of both worlds whilst only having to purchase and maintain one computer each.

Office 365

As part of the initial discussions, it was identified that the business would require an email solution, centralised and accessible data storage and collaborative tools.

Clearwater recommended Office 365 as the ideal platform to fulfil these requirements - and much more besides. Our engineers configured the Office 365 tenancy (including DNS management) and helped the directors to start to set up their Microsoft Teams and SharePoint filing structures. We also helped them to access the new email accounts on their phones.

IT security

Securing valuable customer data was a primary consideration for the new entrepreneurs. With the likelihood of data being regularly transported on laptops, it was decided that a three-fold approach to security was required.

Since the laptops provided had the Windows 10 Pro operating system, it seemed obvious that Bitlocker should be enabled. Bitlocker encrypts the data on the physical hard drive of the laptop and prevents anyone accessing it if the hard dive is removed and connected to another PC.

With the laptops joined to Azure AD accounts in Office 365, each machine uses the Windows "Hello" service to provide additional account security should an account become compromised. Each access PIN is tied to the TPM chip on the laptop and two-step verification is used at the laptop set-up stage. When a user enters the PIN on the device, the identity provider knows from the combination of Hello keys and PIN that this is a verified identity and provides an authentication token that allows Windows 10 to access resources and services. The secure way to provide single sign-on access to company data.

The final piece of the security implementation was to install Bitdefender Endpoint Management security software to protect the laptops from threats on the internet.

The whole implementation took under a week from the order being placed to delivery of hardware and an introduction to the services available to them in Office 365.

Thank you so much with your help getting our business IT up and running. We are over the moon with the service provided by Clearwater IT. Caroline Baxter