Datamonitor's products are increasingly subscription based with premium subscription services representing more than 70% of the total business, with revenues of £23.7m in 2004. These services are delivered electronically and are often integrated into clients' portals for onward dissemination through their organisations. The efficient and effective delivery of those services is key - 89% of Datamonitor clients use the research to develop competitive intelligence. They depend on the site always being available, with quick and reliable access to the information they need. This requirement for constant secure online access presented the IT department with a number of challenges which in July 2001 led them to give Attenda responsibility for managing their web applications. Neil Dodgson, Director of Technology, explains.

"The online delivery of content to our customers is our core business and we place a very high premium on the availability of that content. We operate in a global business and we need to be able to provide a 24-hour service. In 2001, we went through a review and realised that we didn’t have the size or the depth of IT resource internally to manage the servers on a 24x7 basis, nor did we have the quality of data centre necessary to be able to guarantee a high level of availability".

Neil continued, "Rather than invest more money in increasing the number and skills of people in support and in improving our computer room, it made more sense to outsource our web applications and infrastructure, so we embarked on a competitive bid process. While we found that Attenda was not the cheapest of the companies we looked at, we felt that it offered the highest quality service which was easy to differentiate from its competitors".

Maintaining the availability of the service, 24x7 is of paramount importance, especially through the peaks of activity when Europe and America are 'awake'. Similarly knowing that the research is secure and can only be accessed by authorised clients is vital to the growth of the business In 2003, Datamonitor requested a re-architecture of the platform to allow them to develop an update to their website and application software. A hardware refresh was carried out as part of this initiative and about 90% of the existing hardware was replaced. This was done to create capacity moving forward, while retaining more or less the same cost structure for Datamonitor. A new website was launched in spring 2004.

The additional capacity was fortuitous, given the recent acquisitions made by Datamonitor: Market Intelligence Service (MIS), (a US business supplying information to the consumer market); eBenchmarkers, (a UK-based business providing operational performance benchmarking services to the financial services industry); and in January 2005, the Butler Group, (one of Europe’s leading research and analysis companies for the IT industry). "It's a testament to our joint solution planning that we don’t feel that our capacity will be under threat." says Neil Dodgson. Looking back over the four years spent working with Attenda, he is very satisfied with the way things have gone. "I think the relationship has worked very well for us. We planned a certain amount of capacity into our business and through the work we've done with Attenda, we’ve managed to keep a similar sized solution, yet been able to increase traffic and value over the course of our relationship."

Neil feels that Attenda has the right balance of skills to be a partner and that its support process is very well aligned to match the needs of Datamonitor as a business. "Attenda provides a good level of service, 24x7x52 to help us with the simpler stuff and when we need a deeper level of expertise, for the more difficult issues, then we get that too. It's very important for us to have this balance in our partner. There are many organisations who will offer 24x7 support, but when you need a little bit more from them; when you push them that bit further, they don't have it. This mix is really important - we need both the availability and the advice that Attenda can provide."

So what have been the other main benefits from working with Attenda? For Datamonitor's customers, the answer is definitely 'availability'. Neil and his team see a further principal benefit as 'the absence of headache!' Also, linked to this, a greater peace of mind: the reassurance that if the IT team needs to do something with the system at 8 pm, then Attenda will be there to support them; of knowing that when a security alert comes out from Microsoft, Attenda will take care of it. "This frees up your time and also your mind to work effectively on other things, because you’re not worrying about the little operational issues, but concentrating on moving the business forward" concludes Neil.