Scaling IT Infrastructure for a Growing Melbourne Consultancy

The Challenge

The consultancy had experienced exceptional growth, from a boutique 15-person firm to a 60-person practice in three years. Their IT had not kept pace. What had worked for 15 people was straining visibly at 60, and would clearly collapse under further growth. There was no IT strategy, no IT documentation, and no clear ownership of technology decisions. The managing director was fielding IT issues personally.

The device environment was a mix of personal laptops, consumer-grade equipment purchased from retail stores, and a handful of business-grade machines from three different vendors configured differently by whoever happened to set them up. There was no enforced device standard, no mobile device management, and no way to remotely wipe a device if a staff member left. Three people had left the firm in the previous year, and in each case the offboarding process had been described as “hoping for the best.”

Onboarding new staff was an extended, painful process. Getting a new consultant productive typically required 2 to 3 days: waiting for equipment, configuring accounts across a dozen separate tools, explaining where files were kept (typically “ask a colleague”), and resolving the inevitable application access issues that emerged in the first weeks. In a consulting firm where billable time is the primary measure of value, this onboarding friction had a direct financial cost.

The part-time IT contractor the firm relied on had strong technical skills but had never been asked to think strategically about IT. There was no roadmap, no capacity planning, and no relationship between IT investment and the firm's growth plans.

The Solution

SuperStack IT began with a full infrastructure assessment that mapped the existing environment and identified the highest-priority risks and inefficiencies. The assessment report was presented to the managing director with a prioritised 12-month roadmap linking each recommendation to a business outcome, faster onboarding, better security, lower IT friction. This was the first time IT had been framed in business terms rather than technical ones for the firm's leadership.

The standardisation project moved all users to a consistent Microsoft 365 E3 environment with Azure Active Directory as the identity foundation. A standard device build was established, with the firm moving to a single hardware vendor and a managed procurement process. Microsoft Intune was deployed for device management, enabling automatic configuration, policy enforcement, and remote wipe capability from day one of any new device being enrolled.

Automated onboarding and offboarding workflows were built in Microsoft 365 and Intune. When a new staff member joined, a single request to SuperStack IT triggered automatic provisioning of all accounts, group memberships, shared mailbox access, SharePoint permissions, and device configuration. The same automation reversed when someone left. What had previously taken days of manual work, often with mistakes and gaps, became a reliable two-hour process.

Quarterly IT strategy sessions were established with the managing director. These sessions review system performance, upcoming projects, vendor renewals, licence utilisation, and the rolling 12-month technology roadmap. For the first time, IT investment decisions at the firm are made with forward visibility rather than in response to crises.

The Results

The productivity gains from the onboarding improvement alone were measurable. With an average of two new consultants per month at the firm's growth rate, the reduction from three days to two hours represented a significant return on the implementation investment. The managing director, who had been personally involved in resolving IT issues, reported that technology had essentially “disappeared” from her weekly concerns, it simply worked.

Client Testimonial

“For three years IT was something that happened to us, we reacted to problems, hoped nothing would break, and spent money without any sense of whether it was the right amount or the right things. Having a strategic IT partner means we make deliberate decisions. The roadmap changed how we think about technology entirely.”