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Renewables · London · 85 staff, Mac estate

An 85-person renewables company in London

The IT director left and nobody was running IT. An Apple estate on Jamf, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 side by side, no backups and no patch management. We took over, sorted the licensing, removed local admin, got patching and antivirus working, supported the company through ISO 27001 and ISO 22301, and stayed on a retainer for two more years.

  • IT director gone; outsourced IT team in place the following week
  • Local admin removed from every Mac through Jamf
  • Patch management and RMM: none to every Mac kept current
  • Antivirus: none to endpoint protection on every device, reporting centrally
  • Backups: none to tested backups of Google Workspace and Microsoft 365
  • Supported through ISO 27001 and ISO 22301
  • Retained for two further years

The problem

A fast-moving London renewables company of 85 people whose IT director had just left, taking with them most of what anyone knew about how the IT worked. The estate was Apple, managed through Jamf, with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both in use and nobody certain which was the system of record for what. There were no backups of either. There was no patch management. Staff ran as local administrators on their Macs.

The business did not want a slow handover or a rebuild. It wanted someone to run IT from the following week, and to make it safe without getting in the way of a company that moves quickly.

What we did

We took over the running of IT as the outsourced IT team rather than a project supplier: helpdesk, monitoring, the Jamf estate, both cloud platforms and the vendors. The first job was licensing, which had drifted: the right plans on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace for what each was actually used for, with nothing paid for twice.

Then the risks, in order. Local admin was removed from every Mac through Jamf, with staff keeping the ability to do their jobs and losing the ability to install whatever a phishing email suggested. RMM tooling and patch management were put in place so that macOS and the applications on it were kept current without anyone having to remember. Proper antivirus and endpoint protection went onto every device and reported centrally. Backups were set up for both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 and tested.

What changed

Within the first weeks the company had a working helpdesk, a patched and protected estate, and a backup of its data for the first time. None of it slowed the business down, which was the test.

With the estate under control, the company went for ISO 27001 and ISO 22301. We provided the technical side of both: the access control, patching, endpoint protection, backup and recovery evidence that an information security and business continuity auditor expects to see, drawn from the systems we were already running rather than written for the occasion. We hold both standards ourselves, which helps.

The engagement that began as cover for a departed IT director became a retainer, renewed for two further years. Running IT for a Mac-first company on Google Workspace is not the Microsoft-only picture most providers want, and it is a normal part of what we do.