To ensure the ongoing technology requirements of the agency are met, as it continues to expand and embrace more digital-centric operations, Joe Public has contracted Syrex to deliver a full complement of ICT solutions in a partnership that began in 2012.

Founded in 1998, Joe Public is one of the largest majority black-owned independent agencies in South Africa. It focuses on delivering creative excellence through integrated services that range from ATL, BTL, brand design, digital, PR, and media, in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. The group also has an affiliate in Amsterdam.

Initially, the Syrex implementation focused on connectivity but that was expanded five years ago when Joe Public wanted to build on its ICT infrastructure with additional services capable of addressing its growth requirements.

“We now supply Joe Public with everything from connectivity and infrastructure to managed services, Microsoft O365 to security and telephony including business continuity, and disaster recovery. As a long-standing partner, Syrex has been consulting, executing, and maintaining the entire IT footprint of the group to ensure it has a functional environment to deliver on its mandate of providing service excellence to clients,” says Ralph Berndt, sales and marketing director at Syrex.

He believes that Joe Public is the perfect example of what the Syrex solution suite can deliver from a technology an operational perspective.

“Our success with them highlights how we can provide everything from the desktop to the cloud, giving them the peace of mind to focus on their strategic deliverables. Furthermore, it illustrates how effective an integrated ICT environment can be for companies to grow in challenging market conditions,” he continues.

Today, Syrex is running full service desk capabilities, remote monitoring as well as providing Joe Public with on-site network, systems and infrastructure engineers. Syrex is also taking care of all Joe Public’s Microsoft licensing in their data centre, on premises servers and Microsoft 365 environment. And as part of the security value proposition, Syrex is running a Check Point firewall as a service, Mimecast, and dual connectivity features at Joe Public, to name a few.

Syrex has recently implemented extensive Redstor business continuity, archiving, and disaster recovery services at Joe Public to ensure the group has full redundancy and access to all their mission-critical files regardless of the geographic location of staff, something that has been imperative with the lockdown conditions of last year.

Joe Public has 250 users on its network environment, many of whom are running through a virtual private network. This ensured that employees could remain operational during the challenges of last year. In fact, such was the success of the ongoing work Syrex has been doing with Joe Public, that the company had zero disruption during the hard lockdown period in March and April last year.

“We have continually been improving their network infrastructure over the years and have put a robust roadmap in place to take care of all their future requirements. With Redstor and Hystax, we are looking to provide Joe Public with levels of resilience in the cloud that they never had before, all delivered securely and in real-time.”

“Joe Public is using the majority of our technology recommendations and is continually investing in solutions that we recommend to enhance their operational environment. They have been willing to embrace technology for the betterment of their business and have really been leading the charge for the digital transformation of its agency to compete with the best in the world,” says Berndt.

“I am really proud of the partnership and collaboration that exists between Joe Public and Syrex. I think our growth journey has been amazing, and been solidified with a strong relationship, that enables us to Trust each other as partners,” says Justin Blackbeard, Group Financial Director at Joe Public.