How Our Outsourced IT Support Services Transformed AAT.
The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) is the world’s leading professional body for accounting technicians with over 124,000 members across 100 countries. Proudly, for the past four years, the globally-recognised awarding body has partnered with PSP to outsource their IT solutions to reduce internal costs, improve the members’ online experience and increase their overall in-house efficiency.
When the globally-recognised professional body AAT knew there were issues with its current IT solution and supplier, it approached PSP Agile IT to identify and rectify the multitude of issues that were holding them back. Discover how we streamlined their business' IT systems, making them far more efficient and saving them substantial savings per annum.
The client outsourced manual and automated software testing to us as an extension of their in-house testing team. Our automated testers use Postman for testing, and Cypress for front-end test automation, whilst leveraging Cucumber in our approach (BDD). This means everyone in the business (from finance teams to testers) can read and understand exactly what the tests do.
AAT required business analysts and business systems analysts for support on multiple internal projects. Our in-house BA and BSAs engaged with senior stakeholders to gather business and project requirements and then translated them into actionable steps for their technical teams to follow.
Our business analysts have a keen eye for mapping out and analysing the current business processes (the ‘as is’ stage) and then identifying the tangible changes that are needed to improve (the “to be” stage).
Here is the feedback we received from AAT about one of our BAs, Justin:
"I wanted to feedback, not just how competent he is, but his all-round attitude. He is one of the staff where, if you are working on a project, you will be wanting to ringfence him to be a part of it. I will add that it is not just myself, I have had similar discussions with several other managers at the company. If Justin were an employee, we’d have recommended him for the employee of the month award."
PSP Agile IT Saved AAT £300,000 per year in IT Costs
Our review of AAT’s internal IT solutions saved the organisation over a quarter of a million pounds per year in IT running costs. The process of identifying, assessing and implementing improvements led to a reduction in servers, licensing costs and services that required unnecessary support. We also identified several outsourced IT services where the suppliers were underperforming and were not being scrutinised or held to account. Through increased management controls, we delivered a multitude of improvements and significant savings.
In 2023, AAT employed our Deputy CSO, Scott Slocombe, to improve their cyber security strategy. Working with senior management and technical teams, Scott reviewed their existing security and built a cyber security strategy that met their specific requirements. Once developed, he oversaw the implementation of the strategy, while providing regular updates to senior stakeholders at AAT.
Outsourced IT Project Management
Our senior IT project management team have provided the client with strategic IT solutions, such as setting the vision and strategy for the IT, systems and infrastructure. As part of the service, we have saved the client money on IT running costs, managed third-party suppliers and also supported them through recruiting for their own in-house IT teams.
Digital Transformation: Dynamics 365
In 2023, we commenced a multimillion-pound digital transformation project which utilises a full team of Software Developers, Software Testers, Quality Assurance, an IT Project Manager, Project Governance and System Integrators, who all sit under one roof in our Digital Transformation office. Our Digital Transformation team is responsible for selecting and implementing core business systems, such as CRM and finance systems and training staff on how to use them.
If you would like to streamline the IT solutions of your business or educational establishment by outsourcing your IT support services to apply a similar IT strategy as we have with AAT, please get in touch with our award-winning team today.