Orlichem is a chemical manufacturing business based in Cape Town. With around 38 staff operating across a single campus, and a newly developed office area waiting to be brought online, the business needed an IT ecosystem that could keep daily operations running smoothly while supporting their physical expansion.
Their previous IT provider had left the environment unstable, under secured, and frustratingly reactive. They were caught in the noise of failing tech instead of focusing on what they actually excel at, which is manufacturing.
Chemtoll came to Complete IT with a very specific but urgent set of challenges. Their team needed to access Pastel and Quickbooks, their core accounting and invoicing software, from multiple locations, including remotely. But their existing IT setup simply couldn't support it.
They were sharing documents through consumer-grade tools like Dropbox and OneDrive, with no centralised, secure environment. Backups were inconsistent, a mix of ad-hoc cloud copies and manual local saves that had never been tested for recovery. Security on workstations was minimal, and the entire network was exposed to ransomware, malware, and accidental data loss.
Rather than patching the existing setup, we started from the right place, a clean, purpose-built server environment designed around what the business actually needed.
We specified and deployed an HP Proliant ML110 server, configured for remote access via Terminal Services. This gave three users, both in-office and remote, secure, reliable access to Pastel and Quickbooks from any location. The server was protected by a UPS and fully imaged for rapid recovery in the event of hardware failure.
The existing email system wasn't compatible with the new Terminal server environment. We migrated all email accounts to Microsoft 365 with Office 2016 licensing specific to the Terminal server, giving every user the same tools, fully licensed, whether working in the office or remotely. Staff could now send Quickbooks invoices via email from anywhere.
We designed a backup architecture with no single point of failure:
Backups are monitored daily. Test restores are performed regularly. A monthly backup integrity report is provided, so the client always knows their data is recoverable, not just backed up.
We deployed a firewall server and integrated it with Sophos endpoint protection across all workstations, covering ransomware prevention, malware protection, and real-time threat monitoring. The network went from completely open to fully protected.
"The total transformation took their IT from a liability into an asset. Staff can access what they need from anywhere. Data is backed up, verified, and recoverable. The network is protected. And the business has one monthly support fee that covers monitoring, maintenance, and helpdesk, no more surprise call-out costs."
Find out in 6 quick questions. Get your free IT Risk Score, no sales call required.
