When you are the country’s largest independent accountancy and consulting service provider, your IT environment should not stay behind. That is the frame of mind of Sebastien Dubrulle, CIO & COO of Moore Belgium. His responsibility is to oversee 425 employees, across 10 offices. While the company keeps expanding, he trusts Netleaf to support him in this task.
At Moore Belgium, every IT decision is a business-driven decision. “With acquisitions, you often have to deal with temporary moments when external parties are not yet able to, or are not allowed to, access the entire network,” says Dubrulle, “but they still have to be able to work, of course. That’s why it was important to set up our Wi-Fi and our network flexibly. With the ultimate goal to support Bring Your Own Device. We needed a Wi-Fi that everyone can connect to, whatever the profile is. It must be user-friendly, secure and fast.”
Three levels of IT
Dubrulle has a clear vision for Moore’s network: “We need to disconnect IT from the old image, the image of IT workers in the basement who are only concerned with efficiency and making sure that everyone has a laptop with good bandwidth. When you think like that, you are not actually involved in revenue support, only in cost reduction. I started here under the condition “I want to do more than that kind of basement work’.”
“IT should at least also deal with the second level of IT management: supporting revenue. This is the more customer-oriented approach. What you do with IT should not only be visible to internal users. It must be visible to the customers. It should make them pleased to work with us. They have to see that what we invest in IT is also for their benefit.”
“Nowadays the first thing you do when you visit a company, is to see if the Wi-Fi performs properly. It is the first way to test companies. It is a crucial element, also for the customers who pass by. You want them to have a good experience, to feel that everything is under control, that the security is solid. Ergonomics and security are crucial in that context.”
“I also really enjoy working on the third level of IT: future-oriented, ensuring that we remain relevant. The competition continues to increase for everyone, if you are not thinking about what is coming our way in five years, you are doing badly. I definitely want to think along with it, keep up with the times. I don’t want to recognize from a reactive mode that we are outdated.”
“If you are not thinking about what is coming our way in five years, you are doing badly.”
Choosing Netleaf
The partnership with Netleaf was a calculated choice. Dubrulle explains, “I appreciate the cooperation. Firstly, I think it is important that a partner only focuses on his specialty. That’s the technology part, but you also have the teams. For me, that is the most important part. I can always call them. When there are concerns, we listen to each other and we can talk about it as adults. We always find a solution. The reactivity they show is very important. At that moment you know ‘we are in the right place’. It is not always guaranteed that a partner that works with excellent equipment, also delivers the best service. The people you work with are at least as important.”
Bruno Barbaix, Network & Security Consultant at Netleaf, was responsible for implementing Network Access Control at Moore Belgium. “Now that the design of Bring Your Own Device is completely ready and a new SSID has been created, everything is running smoothly,” he says. “It is a mix of different setups. Two networks, one for everything we now know about guests, and another SSID where anyone with a Moore account can connect, regardless of their device.”
“At Moore it is also true that all wired & wireless ports are NAC-implemented. If you just plug a device into the LAN, instead of a printer for example, you will have no network access at all. Only known devices will gain access to the network, with the necessary protection from the firewall.”
“The combination of cloud and data center also pleases me,” says Dubrulle. “Cloud is a good solution, but it is expensive. Full cloud is something that is currently skyrocketing in terms of cost, which is why it’s not a bad idea to combine cloud and data center. The concept is that you have to be able to efficiently connect the two. How you can balance them, with express routes for example, has proved to be crucial. We offer good services, even in times of crisis, and yet we can cover the costs.”
With their network, Moore Belgium is not only concerned with saving costs. Netleaf gives the company the opportunity to use its network to support profit and to be prepared for the changes of the future.
“If there are more acquisitions, I have the feeling that we could get it done in a week or two,” says Dubrulle. “This is a serious improvement. IT is no longer seen as a necessary evil and an expense. It is no longer thought that IT never works, that they are never available. The feeling about IT has now been transformed into a feeling of pride.”
