SAS Global Communications
Helping Clients Transform Their Networks for Cloud and Digitalisation

“Companies are increasingly having to modernise their networks as they move more applications to the cloud and more staff to home working,” says Simon Cranford, CIO at SAS Global Communications.

This has driven a wider adoption of SD WAN, greater use of internet circuits alongside private networks, and has led to the emergence of SASE to protect against the changing threat landscape. These changes have major implications for the WAN. Cranford says that enterprises may find that their IT projects will quickly grind to a halt if their digital transformations are not designed carefully alongside the WAN.

The Horsham-based SAS Global Communications, provides mid-sized and enterprise clients with specialised managed services for WAN, Internet, cloud access, hosted voice, security and managed IT. SAS designs bespoke hybrid SD WAN networks, increasingly with SASE. The company uses end-to-end digital processes and a single portal to monitor and run the whole infrastructure. Their key objectives are to improve performance, reliability and customer experience. Working to achieve these goals, the company helps customers transform their networks, offers consultations, delivers customised designs and services, and relentlessly drives for a great customer experience. Describing themselves as boutique-but-global, the firm consistently achieves a Net Promoter Score over 70.

When moving to Cloud, the complexities of designing, installing and troubleshooting the underlying network can make a DIY SD WAN rollout unpalatable.

“A Managed SD-WAN service helps you deploy SD-WAN and Cloud access without a large IT team,” explains Cranford. Thiseliminates the risk and effort of moving to SD-WAN with an in-house team and instead, allows the client to focus on their wider objectives. Clients can thus avoid tasks such as designing and troubleshooting the network, managing procurement, provisioning and field support and running a WAN helpdesk, reducing their need for skilled staff.

A key differentiator is the consultation SAS offers to help clients transform their networks. Cranford also highlights that in the multi-circuit, multi-carrier world of SD WAN, their hybrid networking experience is a distinct advantage. “We are independent of carriers and vendors, acting solely for the client,” he says. “Our approach gives our clients greater agility, responsiveness and performance, with more accurate billing and simple business execution.”

Cranford shares a case study that highlights how SAS’s managed IT services helped a client realise the maximum potential of a Cisco SD WAN solution. The story involves the company’s engagement with Barratt Developments—the nation’s largest housebuilder, which built 15,000 homes the past year.

Over the last seven years, Barratt Developments has increased their housing output by 40% and has also developed several sustainable building practices. While the company wanted to migrate toCloud, they first needed to upgrade the IT and communications infrastructure at their construction sites. In addition to adopting a cloud model, the company wanted to outsource the procurement and management of its infrastructure.

This approach would allow Barratt to move IT from a capital expense to an operating expense model, thereby increasing its agility as a business and allowing it to scale as needed. Having previously run a successful 4G trial for the client, SAS was ideal for the project. The firm designed a managed SD-WAN solution that offered Barratt flexible, dependable, high-performance cloud applications that were coupled with 4G mobile technology. The solution allowed the client to shift connectivity according to their requisites as they went through different development stages in construction. With applications being predominantly cloud-based, Cisco Meraki became a unanimous choice for SAS and Barratt, who together chose the MX68 Cloud Managed Security and SD-WAN Appliance for the programme.

SAS is known for its award-winning innovation, such as the latest customer portal that lets customers place and track orders, and manage tickets, inventories and online invoicing of their whole infrastructure under one roof.

“As customers move toward multi-circuit, multi-carrier hybrid SD-WAN networks, this will increasingly differentiate us from networks with single carriers and no integrated portal,” says Cranford. However, the company’s primary focus is to delight customers with a personalised service. “Carrier partners value our ability to scale bespoke solutions to thousands of global sites. Customers value our consultation, customized design and intimate service,” concludes Cranford. Cisco itself sees SAS as an exemplar MSP, highlighting them in a recent case study as a top 10 UK SD WAN provider and calling out their extremely high Net Promoter Score.