CASE STUDY
For almost 30 years, we’ve worked alongside MSV, a housing group that manages almost 9,000 homes across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and West Yorkshire. As their trusted technology partner, we’ve helped to modernise their IT and enhance day-to-day operations while navigating significant organisational changes – including a major merger.
Building and maintaining a near three-decade strong partnership is not a given, and MSV credits the success of the relationship to the collaborative, people-first approach that blends managed services with strategic project delivery. Working closely with a lean internal IT team, we’ve helped the organisation modernise its technology foundations – ensuring they remain secure, resilient, and able to support a wide range of digital services without the headache of juggling multiple suppliers.
Throughout this time, we have remained MSV’s first port of call for everything from first-line help desk support to major technology changes, including the deployment of foundational infrastructure, a large-scale migration to Microsoft Azure, and technical facilitation of the merger between Mosscare Housing and St Vincent’s to create the larger group entity in place today.
Industry:
Housing
Size:
9,000 homes
Solution:
Managed support services
With a small internal IT team already stretched to capacity, MSV was looking for an expert IT partner who could alleviate the burden of managing its IT environment and consolidate the administration of its supplier estate, bringing services across support, infrastructure, network and security into a single relationship.
Aspirations for future growth also necessitated a partner that could keep pace with technology shifts and guide MSV’s IT strategy with considered, people-centric advice to steer a path through major organisational changes.
Identifying Advania as a local provider with a customer-centric approach and existing expertise in the housing sector, MSV found a dependable partner that could deliver immediate support as soon as they picked up the phone, providing urgent assistance whenever issues arose.
From an initial project focused on client device procurement and server installation, our involvement with MSV quickly grew to an ongoing strategic engagement that not only supports business-as-usual demands, but also aligns IT with key business goals.
Throughout the relationship, we’ve delivered a consistent managed service, built on day-to-day operational support that complements the internal IT team, including rapid response for urgent issues. Central to this is an intrinsic knowledge of MSV’s internal systems and processes, which offers us a platform to assess issues and respond in a way other suppliers simply could not.
As MSV has grown, this service has expanded to cover step-change projects including device rollout, cloud migration and network refresh. At each point, they’ve turned to us as a single partner with the knowledge and expertise to support their IT end-to-end – a trusted collaborator with a broad skill set, avoiding the need to engage individual, specialist providers.
This long-standing relationship also extends beyond technology requirements. When the original IT lead retired, we were trusted to support with the process of interviewing and selecting her successor – a hire who has now been in post for over 20 years.
For 30 years, MSV has delivered exceptional digital services to its tenants, backed by a strategic IT partnership built for longevity. Their IT team relies on us for responsive managed services, overarching strategic guidance, and collaboration with a trusted team who understand their mission, environment and operational needs deeply. Our ongoing relationship is a testament to our people-first approach and the stellar results it achieves.
Today, we support MSV across all aspects of their IT estate, from security operations centre (SOC) services, through to Azure optimisation, and the reliable support that’s been the backbone of our relationship.
Alison Piggin
Director of IT
