{"id":35315,"date":"2019-11-13T11:10:22","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T11:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=35315"},"modified":"2019-11-20T15:48:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T15:48:35","slug":"rackspace-aids-british-heart-foundations-mission-to-beat-heartbreak-by-2030","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2019\/11\/13\/rackspace-aids-british-heart-foundations-mission-to-beat-heartbreak-by-2030\/","title":{"rendered":"Rackspace aids British Heart Foundation\u2019s mission to beat heartbreak by 2030"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the user experience becomes ever more digital, organisations must deploy the most advanced IT solutions to reach their audience. The British Heart Foundation has migrated to Microsoft Azure with Rackspace for IT modernisation, supporting a more robust website and powering its online retail store. Mary O\u2019Callaghan, Director of Technology Engagement at the British Heart Foundation, tells us more about the solution. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rackspace, the technology services company, has helped the British Heart Foundation migrate to Microsoft Azure and transform the role technology plays within the organisation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British Heart\nFoundation is the largest independent funder of research into heart and\ncirculatory diseases in the UK, which it supports through voluntary\ncontributions, physical stores and its online retail business. As part of its\nstrategy to create a world free from the fear of heart and circulatory diseases\nby 2030, the charity wants to drive advances across the spectrum of these diseases,\npreventing these conditions from developing, as well as enabling those with\nexisting conditions to lead better, longer lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move to\nMicrosoft Azure accelerates the charity\u2019s goal, with infrastructure that\nprovides a foundation for growth and supports increased fundraising efforts. The\nwebsite has become increasingly important for driving this mission by housing\nfundraising campaigns, the online retail business and acting as a source of\ninformation for all stakeholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with\nRackspace, the migration to Microsoft Azure has given the charity a scalable\nplatform that is reliable and has an uptime of 99.9% to capture digital\ndonations from across the globe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rackspace Professional Services worked collaboratively with the charity, from designing the solution through to technical implementation. The migration took six months without a minute of downtime. One of The British Heart Foundation website\u2019s recent campaigns drove a significant traffic spike without encountering any of the issues the website faced in the past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary O\u2019Callaghan,\nDirector of Technology Engagement at the British Heart Foundation, said: \u201cAs\nour IT set up moves from being a service provider to a core part of how we\nachieve our organisational objectives, both the wider business and the IT team\nitself has had to adopt a different mindset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA true\npartnership has been formed with the Rackspace Professional Services team who\nhave supported us at every step of the process with unbiased expertise, deep platform knowledge and a strong\nunderstanding of our operating environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam Evans,\nDirector of Professional Services, EMEA at Rackspace, said: \u201cIt was crucial for\nus to work collaboratively with the British Heart Foundation to bridge the gap\nbetween its existing platform and an infrastructure ready to support its 2030\ngoal. Our Professional Services team got to know the business inside out before\ndesigning and delivering the infrastructure, automation and migration which was\ncrucial to meeting the charity\u2019s business objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee James, CTO,\nEMEA at Rackspace, added: \u201cTo achieve such an ambitious and important mission,\nthe British Heart Foundation needed to totally transform the role technology\nplayed within the organisation. Beyond the cloud migration project, we\u2019re proud\nto be helping the organisation with ongoing strategic guidance on how to use\ntechnology to improve the overall stakeholder experience, scale fundraising\nefforts, and ultimately, work towards its promise of beating heartbreak from\nheart and circulatory diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary O\u2019Callaghan, Director of\nTechnology Engagement at the British Heart Foundation, tells us how beneficial the\nMicrosoft solution has been for the organisation and how it has contributed\ntowards helping the charity reach its goal. <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How important is having a reliable IT\ninfrastructure for the British Heart Foundation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A reliable tech\ninfrastructure and website are key to achieving the organisation\u2019s ambitious\ngoals, as set out in our new strategy to 2030. It is the platform for our\nonline retail business, houses fundraising campaigns and acts as a vital source\nof heart health information for tens of thousands of people every week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, our\nLondon to Brighton Bike Ride is a major annual event and all of its information\nand fundraising is processed through the website. We see a major peak in online\ntraffic during this time and we had issues in the past with the website slowing\ndown, grinding to a halt, or even crashing, which hampers the user experience\nand can hinder people from supporting us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nmoving to Microsoft Azure with Rackspace, we\u2019ve established a reliable IT\nestate that enables us to achieve our ambitious goals. The website can handle increased\ntraffic from campaigns, provide donors with an improved experience and is\nfuture-proofed to grow our online retail business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did you choose to work with Microsoft and\nwhat appealed to you about its solution?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of our\nstrategic review, we recognised the need to transform our infrastructure and\nthe broader role of technology within the organisation in order to deliver on\nour strategy to 2030. Once we determined that we needed a new infrastructure\nplatform to drive reliability and scalability, we appointed Rackspace as a\nstrategic partner. Having selected Microsoft Azure for its reliability and\nPlatform-as-a-Service offering, Rackspace was key in providing the technical\nknowledge and expertise to help us tackle the complexity of moving to the cloud\nand realise value from it as quickly as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are some of the business benefits you\u2019ve\nseen since the implementation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The migration\nkicked off in October 2018 and was completed in April 2019. Throughout the\nprocess, the website stayed online without a minute of downtime, with Rackspace\nand the British Heart Foundation taking a staged approach across multiple teams\nto ensure the transition was as smooth as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nmodernised platform has provided the foundation for our 2030 strategy. In the past, there had been concerns\nover whether certain campaigns would break the website. However, after the move\nto Azure we ran a campaign on dementia and although traffic was significantly\nup, we didn\u2019t encounter any of the issues across the site that we had in the\npast. The platform also remains available every minute of the day, along with\ncustomer support in case something goes wrong outside of normal working hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve\nalso seen additional benefits in recruitment, with an industry-leading platform\nthat makes it easier to attract and retain the talent we need to make our\nambitions a reality. It\u2019s\nthe first time we\u2019ve had IT and digital working together, with Rackspace\nleading the way, setting up all sorts of possibilities for further business\nbenefits in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has the team adapted to a different\nmindset and what does this involve? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role of\ntechnology and innovation across the organisation is shifting to underpin our\nbusiness strategy. With our IT set-up moving from being a service provider to a\ncore part of how we achieve our objectives, we have been able to adopt a\ndifferent mindset across the team and wider business \u2013 something we have learnt\nfrom Rackspace\u2019s culture and how it delivers innovation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rackspace has and\nis continuing to operate as an extension of the British Heart Foundation team. The Professional Services team provided us with advice,\nsupport and guidance on the right ways to deploy the cloud, transforming the\nrole technology plays in the organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has the system improved efficiency for the\nend-user?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only have we\nbenefited from Rackspace\u2019s technical expertise, we have also learnt from its\nmission to always provide a fanatical experience to its customers. This has\nhelped us achieve one of the key goals of our IT\ntransformation: delivering a positive user experience for all stakeholders\n\u2013 both those helping us reach our aim of ending heartbreak by 2030 and those\nwho are benefiting from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u200bOne way that\nwe’ve delivered on this goal has been through our website, which has\nimproved the website availability and online experience for volunteers and\ndonors. It is also something we are looking to develop by further tailoring the\nuser journey for different stakeholders. We want to introduce\npersonalisation technology to provide individualised content and information to\ncarers or those affected by heart disease, for example. Ultimately, this will\nensure that all our stakeholders are having a relevant and useful experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How far has the system future-proofed the\norganisation?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The migration was\nalways about providing a future-proofed platform to support our 2030 strategy\nand the reliable infrastructure has opened up a number\nof new possibilities. We\u2019re going to be pushing a lot more traffic\nthrough the website in the coming months and years, and we\u2019re reassured it will\nbe able to perform optimally. The new, expandable platform is also helping us\nthink of new ways of helping patients via digital technologies, using data\nanalytics and patient insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the new\nsite is reliable and scalable, we understand it is just the first step in\nkeeping on top of advances in technology. The user experience is becoming\nincreasingly digital and we need to make sure we are using our online presence\nto better engage with our stakeholders, supporters and beneficiaries. We\u2019re\nlooking at Platform-as-a-Service with Rackspace, which will help us be more\nagile, more scalable and more stable. It\u2019s ongoing and it\u2019s the way we can best\nuse technology to reach our targets.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the user experience becomes ever more digital, organisations must deploy the most advanced IT solutions to reach their audience. The British Heart Foundation has migrated to Microsoft Azure with Rackspace for IT modernisation, supporting a more robust website and powering its online retail store. Mary O\u2019Callaghan, Director of Technology Engagement at the British Heart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":35316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[205,51,86,93,23,24],"tags":[13857,368,8944,13858],"class_list":["post-35315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-case-study-newsletter","category-healthcare","category-top-stories","category-united-kingdom","category-used","tag-british-heart-foundation","tag-microsoft-azure","tag-rackspace","tag-rackspace-professional-services"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35315"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35603,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35315\/revisions\/35603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}