Why F1 Solutions
NAATI is a not-for-profit, jointly owned by the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments, and is the only national standards and certifying authority for translators and interpreters in Australia. NAATI-certified members play a vital role in the fabric of our multicultural nation, working with text, audio, or as interpreters within business, community services, government and media. NAATI certification provides quality assurance and confidence to businesses, agencies and individuals reliant on translator and interpreter services.
NAATI’s accreditation system had begun to develop a negative reputation amongst its users and stakeholders. Also, from an infrastructure perspective, it operated differently in each state and there was no real-time centralisation of data. Head office was unable to develop an accurate view of what was going on nationally. Good decision making, efficient scaling and the development of coherent strategies were a challenge without access to such data.
It was decided in 2019 that a transformational program was required across the business. This would include people capability, corporate support systems and streamlining, and automating design and testing processes. NAATI needed to transform into a ‘fit for future’ organisation that had the capability to deliver on its strategic priorities and improve services for its customers.
To increase operational and productivity efficiencies and decrease costs, F1 Solutions moved NAATI from traditional IT services, break/fix, or the on-demand outsourcing model to a strategic IT approach.
With this new approach, F1 Solutions offered a holistic, F1 Advantage Premium solution and hybrid cloud environment that future-proofed NAATI while taking responsibility for the management of the organisation’s IT systems, including proactive monitoring of on-premise servers.
The plan provided NAATI with a simple, all-in-one user license and subscription. It included everything NAATI staff would require to be productive and cyber safe and to operate efficiently and effectively in a modern IT environment.
NAATI operated an extensive fleet of on-premises servers and physical boxes to manage their mission-critical line of business applications. F1 Solutions implemented cloud solutions for various vital parts of the system to increase security, flexibility, and continuity.
For the operations that remained on-site, an F1 Advantage Enterprise Services solution was implemented to proactively monitor essential infrastructure 24/7, detecting and fixing issues before they became significant enough to impact operations.
A modern, Office365 environment
Microsoft Azure AD Conditional Access policies to share documents, resources and applications and for better and more robust protection of corporate data
Industry leading antivirus and antispam protection
Fully managed, state-of-the-art endpoint devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets and mobiles
Unlimited Australian helpdesk support from 7am to 7pm weekdays
Dedicated account management
F1 Advantage ‘Security Advantage’ pack, including endpoint detection and response protection with machine learning and neural networks, detecting malicious code and behaviour before it could cause a problem, and additional coverage for devices from loss or theft by enabling full encryption
F1 Solutions provided mission-critical, centralised IT systems, managed services solutions, cloud solutions and supporting infrastructure. This meant that even during an event as disruptive as the COVID-19 crisis, systems were protected and available, and NAATI was able to continue doing its vital work.However, it didn’t stop at simply doing the same work. NAATI was able to continue to improve its offering to the market. Remote testing was now available through the platform, meaning new channels and business opportunities could be designed and launched.NAATI’s strategic IT investments enabled transformational change across the business, including people capability, improved corporate support systems, and streamlining and automating design and testing processes. Perhaps most importantly, users and stakeholders were measurably engaged by the new systems.
The all-in-one user license model managed by an IT services business allowed a higher level of visibility across the business, greater confidence in the data being presented, and a better ability to scale and leverage new technologies.
Not only was the new system more scalable, secure and resilient, it also increased efficiency, boosted performance and created a far-improved user experience for staff and clients
From user error to cyber attacks, the threats facing NAATI were no longer a critical danger to the business as systems were secured and actively managed.
This is what the project was ultimately all about, and feedback says it was a success.
Azure AD Identity Protection helped make user access more secure. Windows Autopilot helped individualise the user experience and provided for smart configuration and faster deployment. The new, single-window Microsoft 365 suite bundled a smart, efficient operating system with enterprise-grade security tools and integrated workplace productivity apps.