Case Study: GLL
‘Team player’ Insite supports
healthy UK-wide growth for GLL
About GLL
GLL is the largest leisure provider in the UK. An employeeowned charitable social enterprise, GLL runs over 170 leisure
centres and pools, 28 libraries, children's centres and worldclass sporting venues such as the Copper Box Arena in the
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
www.gll.org
Why did GLL need help?
To support continued strong growth, GLL needed to be sure it was procuring the
best IT hosting and support services in the market.
Why did they choose Insite?
“One of Insite’s key strengths is its ability to tailor its services and to be responsive
to the needs of our growing business,” says the client.
30-second
summary
What did Insite deliver?
• Support for GLL’s Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP system
• Hosting of the Dynamics AX system at Insite’s Tier 3 UK data centre
• Following the arrival of a new Head of IT and a subsequent tendering process,
Insite is now GLL’s data centre, hosting and support partner for all enterprise and
desktop systems
• Strategic IT consultancy and proactive guidance.
A key benefit for the client?
“A key contributory factor in GLL being awarded new
business has been our strong IT infrastructure, for which
Insite can take a great deal of credit.”
Case Study: GLL
“Insite represents a safe pair of hands. Their
expertise and resources assure the availability
of every system we use, and I know I can rely
on them for anything IT-related.
When I ask them to look at any piece of work they will
do it diligently and accurately. I never have to worry
when I ask them to do something.”
When a new manager arrives at a football club, every player in
the first team squad knows that their performance will be under
scrutiny. The same principle applies at other organisations when
a new IT Director comes on board. Everyone in the IT team,
suppliers included, must prove their worth.
Insite experienced just such a defining period
when Head of IT Paolo Beato took over at GLL
(Greenwich Leisure Limited). GLL is the largest
leisure business of its kind in the UK, a not-forprofit enterprise that manages over 250 public
facilities, mainly leisure and libraries, primarily
under its customer-facing ‘Better’ brand. GLL’s
‘Better’ brand promotes healthy and active
lifestyles, giving communities access to facilities
that help improve their health and happiness.
A long-standing partner
Insite was originally selected in around 2005 to
support GLL’s Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP system,
and later took over hosting of the AX system too.
Having inherited Insite as a supplier, one of Beato’s priorities
when he joined GLL in late 2011 was to assess Insite’s
performance, contribution and value. He quickly identified that
Insite was not only playing a vital role in the fast-growing GLL
business, but also had a great deal more to contribute to GLL’s
exciting development.
Paolo Beato
Head of IT
GLL
“Insite now provides our data centre and our managed IT
services. They also provide hosting, service desk and desktop
support for every one of our applications, not just for
Dynamics AX. They are our 1st, 2nd and 3rd line support,
looking after around 1,200 users, 1,000 of which are AX users.”
A true team player
According to Beato, “My philosophy is that I am
only as good as my team; and Insite is a vital
component of the IT team, and indeed the
business, here at GLL.”
“There were some major legacy problems with IT
when I took over,” he continues. “There were
many different components that didn’t fit
together particularly well. None of these
concerns had anything to do with Insite, but
they have helped me enormously in getting
them fixed.”
But Insite doesn’t simply ensure that GLL’s business-critical
systems are always available and supported.
“Insite has proved to be a completely reliable, proactive and
strategic partner,” says Beato. “Time after time they come
through with positive and pragmatic proposals on IT
operational issues and strategy.”
In fact, progress has been so rapid that Beato maintains, “the
only problem we have now is managing growth - and that’s a
very nice problem to have in the current economic climate.”
Nevertheless, even with its long track record and close ties with
GLL, Insite recently had to prove, once again, its readiness for
the challenges ahead. Insite’s current contract term was coming
to an end and with another peak period of high growth forecast,
GLL decided to carry out a full tender for its IT hosting, managed
services and support requirements.
Case Study: GLL
Photo: Perri ShakesDrayton, Olympic
hurdler and GLL Sport
Foundation Ambassador
from Tower Hamlets. The
GLL Sport Foundation is
one of the leading
independent supporters
of young sporting talent
in the UK, having
currently provided over
5,000 athlete award
bursaries, totalling over
£2.8 million of support.
GLL was awarded the
contract to manage the
Queen Elizabeth
Olympic Park Aquatics
Centre and Copper Box
by the London Legacy
Development
Corporation. The
facilities are available to
both the whole
community and highperformance athletes.
Procuring the best services in the market
“It was an important juncture for us, and we had to be sure that
we were getting the best services in the market to support
another concentrated period of growth,” says Beato.
Up against stiff competition Insite won a further three-year
extension to its contract.
“One of Insite’s key strengths is its ability to tailor its services
and to be responsive to the needs of our growing business.
That was an important criterion in the selection process. We
were confident that Insite could continue to provide the
highest level of support as our demands on them increased.
Added to that, they communicate very well - and that’s vital
when a business is growing and changing.”
GLL’s growth forecasts have proved accurate. Within three
months of the Insite contract extension, GLL had already won
several sizeable new contracts. These further new contracts
include a 25-year partnership to operate the Oasis Leisure
Centre in Swindon, and a 10-year contract awarded by Rugby
Borough Council to run the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Centre.
GLL is also looking to add to its many libraries, where
services include not just traditional books but e-books, leading
ICT facilities, free internet, study rooms and a wealth of
community activities.
What is it about Insite that makes them such a
good partner for GLL?
“I would come back to my comment that Insite is a thoroughly
safe pair of hands,” says Beato.
“In fact, I would go as far as saying that a key contributory
factor in GLL being awarded new business has been our strong
IT infrastructure, for which Insite can take a great deal of credit,”
he concludes.
Case Study: GLL
About GLL
About Insite
GLL (Greenwich Leisure Limited) is a charitable social enterprise
working to make community services such as leisure centres,
gyms, libraries, playgrounds and performing arts facilities better
for everyone.
Insite is a leading provider of Private Cloud solutions for
business-critical applications.
In 1993, following public spending cuts, Greenwich Council
needed to find a new way to run its leisure centres. GLL, the first
organisation of its kind in UK leisure, was born. Seven local
centres were transferred to GLL, jobs created and new services
added. Since then, GLL has expanded beyond Greenwich to
build, improve and manage UK-wide facilities that attract over
40 million visits every year.
In 2011 GLL became the first leisure operator in the UK to be
awarded the prestigious Social Enterprise Mark and Big Society
Award. Today, GLL manages more than 250 facilities under its
‘Better’ customer-facing brand, and more are being added all
the time.
Insite mitigates its clients’ operational risk by taking full
responsibility for the availability and performance of their
business-critical applications, thereby allowing each client to
focus on developing competitive advantage and business growth.
As an ISO 27001, IL3 and Cyber Essentials Plus accredited
company, and as a G-Cloud 6 accredited supplier, we ensure
that our clients’ business applications meet compliance
regulations and work on time, all the time. Additionally, Insite is
a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner in three competencies: Server
Platform, Data Platform and Hosting.
We are one of the UK’s foremost providers of managed hosting
and support services for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP),
Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Finance and other
business-critical applications. We work on-premise or offpremise, with a client’s IT team or independently.
Established in 1994, Insite owns and operates from a purposebuilt, state-of-the-art Tier 3 datacentre, where a team of highly
qualified in-house engineers ensure our clients’ data is kept
supremely safe and secure 24x7x365.
Insite clients include:
Amber Infrastructure
BlackRock Property
(formerly MGPA)
H&K International
Hoshizaki
L&Q Housing
BrightHouse
Marie Stopes International
Citizens Advice Bureau
Neoss
Countrywide Farmers
Oxford Nanopore
CPL Aromas
Shin-Etsu
Crew Clothing
Steerwell Group
Direct Rail Services
Tarmac Building Products
Graphic Packaging International The Law Society
Joules
The Racing Post
GC Aesthetics
The Royal Mint
GLL
VSO
Gulf Sands Petroleum
Insite Ltd.
www.insite-europe.co.uk
Insite Data Centre,
Telephone
+44 (0)1892 686 000
Unit 21, Chapman Way,
Tunbridge Wells,
Kent TN2 3EF
Email
[email protected]
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