Free Edition Louvolite, a renowned window blind manufacturer renowned for its superior products, has a global presence in the B2B sector, with its headquarters located in Ashton, UK. They have also set up business divisions in Canada and Australia to more effectively cater to the North American and Asian regions. With a workforce exceeding 350 individuals, Louvolite guarantees rapid order processing and delivery of its extensive product range. Their IT team is responsible for managing and supporting all business applications and infrastructure across all Louvolite sites, including those resulting from its recent acquisitions.
The infrastructure at Louvolite spans multiple sites, incorporating a combination of on-premises and off-premises elements. With over 500 devices connected via LAN or WIFI, most of the servers crucial to business operations are hosted externally in a data center to ensure resilience and disaster recovery. The predominant operating system across the vast majority of their devices is Windows OS, accompanied by a few Android handheld devices.
Louvolite's IT objectives are straightforward, with the mantra that everything needs to be modern, scalable, and secure. As opposed to relying on people to identify issues, they expect their systems to do so proactively, and they prioritize streamlining platform maintenance. Reducing complexity and preserving 100 percent uninterrupted operation are their primary objectives.
Louvolite has made significant investments in IT to support the growth and direction of their organization. The team, which until recently was just two members, has now expanded to include six full-time IT staff. The team is divided into two areas: applications and infrastructure, providing robust support for the business and driving change and improvement. Recent projects—such as a complete infrastructure refresh involving cabling, LAN, and WAN—have established a strong platform to support ongoing business application usage.
Gary Bradshaw, the IT manager of the Louvolite Group mentions that their IT goal is the Cyber Essentials certification. Many of their client devices were way behind in OS and patch levels. They wanted to ensure that their employee machines are up to date and effortlessly maintained. In order to achieve this, they needed a thorough overview of their assets and the status of their endpoints.
Louvolite's IT team identified that Endpoint Central could help them overcome their IT challenges. Gary Bradshaw, the IT manager said, "We did not replace any product with Endpoint Central but also we did not just automatically jump into it. With all ManageEngine products, we always carry out an evaluation. Once the IT Team felt that it was the right product for us, we proceeded with Endpoint Central." As a long-time user of ManageEngine Service Desk Plus, Endpoint Central seemed to be the perfect fit for their endpoint management needs, since they were able to integrate both products seamlessly.
Gary says that Endpoint Central's features allowed them to gather all computer assets and easily create a dashboard with the current statuses of their endpoints. This allowed them to plan corrective actions, easily deploy the agent, and schedule and control Windows update patches. The IT team's patch management and software deployment responsibilities have reduced immensely and their patches are up to date after getting on board with Endpoint Central. He recalls that their starting point was very low and they had little or no patch management.
They now have control and visibility over their endpoints and can identify missing patches using Endpoint Central. He further mentions that while they appreciate not having experienced any security incidents previously, being able to be sure that their environment is patched and secure is paramount. Endpoint Central has provided them with that confidence by granting them visibility into the endpoints they are responsible for managing.
From scheduling patches and Windows updates to ensuring machines are up to date, Endpoint Central facilitates their IT team to have a more secure estate which reduces the risk of a cyber-attack and associated costs.
"The top two features according to me are without a doubt, patch management and visibility of patch levels are the number one for us. We can see easily where we are and what remedial action needs to be taken. Second are things like inventory and applications/configuration management and deployment."
"Being able to connect to an endpoint remotely and perform troubleshooting and other activities is also an excellent facility within Endpoint Central that allows us to support both onsite and remote workers."
"As we use Endpoint Central more, we were interested in modules like BitLocker, which helped us reduce the threat of potential lost or stolen devices."
-Gary Bradshaw, IT manager, Louvolite
Patch Management: "One pane of glass to look at the status of our estate and allows us to remediate."
Remote Control: "The agent allows us to perform maintenance on machines without using RDP and being in front of the machine."
Software Deployment: "Being able to use an inbuilt feature and create our own packages and settings has reduced the manual touches required on machines."
Endpoint Central is a unified endpoint management and security solution that enables enterprises, system integrators, and MSPs to securely manage servers, laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, and IoT devices—all from a single pane of glass. Endpoint Central significantly reduces downtime while empowering IT teams to troubleshoot rapidly, and improve productivity and security. This solution is available as on-premises and SaaS editions.