Over the past 20 years, edyn has created an extensive range of serviced apartments and aparthotels across their three brands – Locke, SACO and Cove. With over 500 employees and 80,000 apartments in 260 locations, edyn strive to create soulful hospitality that engages and inspires.
Case Study
edyn
To support this journey, Chorus have worked closely with edyn as their strategic IT and security provider, giving the technical foundation and support to aid their impressive growth.
Challenges
- Need for a modern and cloud-first IT foundation to support rapid business expansion
- Need for IT operations and support that could scale with edyn and provide 24×7 support across their locations
Solutions
- 24×7 IT managed services with onsite engineers
- Ongoing digital transformation programme of works, covering Azure, Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365
- 24×7 managed security services (MXDR services) for security management
Outcomes
- Dedicated IT partner with one team mentality that can scale with edyn and their growth
- Smooth day-to-day IT operations that allow edyn to focus on IT innovations that support business growth
- Modern infrastructure and systems using Microsoft that enable staff to work efficiently and effectively and give a solid technical foundation
edynChorus feel like an extension of edyn and ensure that day-to-day IT operations run smoothly, which has enabled our teams to focus on longer-term innovations that have supported our growth strategy.
Background
Driven by their purpose to make travel an inspirational journey, edyn have an extensive range of serviced apartments and aparthotels across the world. Since first working with Chorus over ten years ago, edyn have seen incredible expansion, growing from around 100 staff to over 500 today through acquisition, business growth and partnerships. As part of this journey, edyn needed to have the right IT foundation and operations in place to be able to scale with them, which is why they partnered with Chorus.
We started working with Chorus because we knew that they would be able to scale and support us as we grew. Keeping pace with our growth has been vital, however the key to our long-lasting relationship has been their team mentality. Chorus feel like an extension of edyn and ensure that day-to-day IT operations run smoothly, which has enabled our teams to focus on longer-term innovations that have supported our growth strategy.
, edyn
24x7 Managed Services
Through their 24×7 Service Desk, Chorus provide IT managed services to edyn’s staff across their offices and hospitality locations, while onsite engineers also support staff in their London and Bristol offices. As part of the managed services, Chorus provide all hardware and licensing management to ensure staff have all the equipment they need to work effectively, whilst being able to call the Service Desk at any time of day.
Alongside IT support, edyn required managed security services to stay protected against evolving cyber threats and to ensure any potential attacks could be immediately identified and contained. Through the Chorus 24×7 Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC), edyn benefit from around the clock security monitoring and protection.
Microsoft Digital Transformation programme
To support their business growth, edyn needed to have the right technical foundations in place so that their staff could work effectively, whilst being easy for administrators to scale and manage. Using Microsoft 365, Azure and Dynamics 365, edyn have adopted a cloud-first model that underpins their digital transformation. Through a programme of works, Chorus and edyn have modernised their infrastructure, systems and processes, making best use of edyn’s Microsoft licensing.
Chorus began with cloud readiness assessments, which enabled their on-premises footprint to be moved into Azure. With their underpinning infrastructure in the cloud, edyn benefit from great scalability capabilities to flex and grow as they do, better working practices for their staff to work remotely and securely, and cost optimisations through Azure Reserved Instances.
Information management has been modernised by moving file shares to SharePoint Online, using a modern site structure that includes hub sites, modern sites and a flat structure. This has allowed staff to work from anywhere, enabled robust information management and reduced reliance on on-premise infrastructure and VPNs.
Using the Power Platform with Dynamics 365
Using Power Automate and Power Apps Forms, intricate authority workflows with multiple stages and complex logic have been automated using modern best practices. This has improved efficiency and productivity for staff, sped up processes and given edyn an audit log of the whole process for compliance purposes.
Key to edyn’s business operations is property management and bookings. To centralise and streamline data management, Chorus have developed integrations and custom functionality within Microsoft Dynamics 365 to manage booking enquiries. By integrating Dynamics 365 with edyn’s dedicated property management systems and accounting software, staff can easily maintain and monitor enquiries. Data integrity and quality are maintained as data is shared and surfaced seamlessly between systems, which enables more efficient operations. The result for customers is a more personalised and smooth customer experience, which edyn are known for.
Looking Ahead
Following impressive growth over the past years, edyn is continuing to thrive. With their dream of introducing soulful hospitality to every gateway city across Europe in just a few short years, edyn have all the foundations in place to succeed.
edynChorus have been a key part of our journey and success. Not only do we trust their expertise, but we really enjoy working with them. There’s a real sense of working with people that care and that has enabled us to build this great relationship.