The Client
Founded by way of a management buyout of the Bingo Division of CAC Leisure plc in 1997 in their hometown of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, Carlton Clubs operates a mixture of purpose-built and traditional Bingo Clubs across Scotland. The business currently operates 10 dedicated Bingo clubs across the country, plus two cafés. Carlton Clubs’ online Bingo site, operated by Jumpman Gaming Limited, was launched in 2007.
In March 2022, the Company transferred ownership to an Employee-owned Trust, the first of its kind in the Bingo Sector, meaning that all employees now have a stake in the current and longer-term success of Carlton Bingo.
Carlton Clubs are a long-standing client, The Apprentice Store initially provided holiday cover and additional resource to meet their project needs. The two Companies have now worked together for over seven years.
The Challenge
Earlier this year when their in-house IT resource moved on, Carlton Clubs were keen to find a suitable replacement that they knew would be committed to the Company and that they would be able to retain.
Because the company operates across Scotland, the perception was that they needed a 24/7 resource to be on hand to attend to any IT or technical problems that may arise at any of their 10 sites. This would have historically required their IT resource to undertake a lot of travelling at short notice.
The Apprentice Store support is designed to be provided on a remote basis, the 24/7 support requirement created a challenge for us too. Our challenge was how to provide a service that ensures all systems are up and running when the client needed them and that any problems were promptly dealt with and resolved.
While we knew the technical engineers (employed to look after fruit machines, bingo equipment etc) based at each site would be more than capable of following procedures and instruction, we did not wish to put strain on this resource.
The Solution
Carlton Clubs made the decision to outsource their IT requirements to The Apprentice Store.
The Apprentice Store set about implementing a fixed price solution, putting robust procedures in place and providing managed solutions for their physical servers.
Where a physical presence was required, Carlton Clubs own technical engineering staff now provide the “hands-on” resource on-site, detailed procedures are followed and this has seen a reduction in IT-related travel costs as well as reduced time delay in corrective action taking place.
The Benefit
Because of the various solutions implemented, Carlton Clubs have experienced a reduction in the disruption to their clubs of technical and IT issues. The systems have been stable, less disrupted and they anticipate a reduced spend overall in the management and resourcing of their IT.
Where a physical presence is needed, Carlton Club’s engineering staff simply follow the procedure to physically install any new pc to the stage where The Apprentice Store take it over and complete the installation remotely. The company has anticipate seeing a reduction in the involvement of their engineering staff in IT issues over time.
The Apprentice Store produce regular statistical reports providing a transparency of spend and regular quarterly meetings are scheduled for more in-depth discussion between The Apprentice Store and Carlton Clubs.
