IT Infrastructure Modernization & Outsourcing for Iconic Brand

Client Profile

A publicly traded global entertainment company with an established brand, undergoing a major transformation to a digital-first business.

The client is a middle-market company with a lean workforce supported by a complex, interconnected technology environment spanning business operations, finance, e-commerce, content management, and other corporate functions.

As the company planned a strategic shift toward a digital-first business model, demands on its IT infrastructure were increasing. But with only a two-member IT team supporting its operations and significant budget constraints, the client faced critical infrastructure challenges:

• Key-person dependency and limited technology coverage left critical infrastructure knowledge concentrated among a small number of internal resources. Their expertise did not span all platforms and emerging technologies, creating support gaps and significant operational and continuity risks if a key resource became unavailable or left the organization.
• High-cost on-premises infrastructure, with core systems, applications, and business data hosted at the company’s California location.
• A fragmented and aging tech environment, with overlapping technologies, inconsistent tooling, and legacy infrastructure increasing operational costs and complexity.
• Lack of infrastructure monitoring, leading to performance issues and significant security risks.
• Lack of infrastructure and security support, including no vulnerability management and inconsistent patching.
• Increasing Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance requirements, creating greater demands for IT governance, security controls, documentation, and oversight as a publicly traded company

As part of its IT infrastructure modernization strategy, the client was migrating its IT environment to the cloud and transitioning from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 (M365) to strengthen security, control, business agility, and standardization. It also planned to deploy the artificial intelligence platform Claude to enhance employee productivity and streamline business processes.

With a significant cloud and infrastructure modernization strategy underway and limited internal resources, the client sought a strategic managed services partner who could:

• Take over and stabilize day-to-day infrastructure operations for the existing antiquated platform, while supporting the company’s broader modernization strategies
• Develop a structured cloud transformation program to minimize risk and provide oversight for the migration led by an external service provider
• Lead the migration from Google Workspace to Microsoft’s productivity suite M365, ensuring a smooth transition across business applications
• Strengthen infrastructure monitoring and cybersecurity controls to improve visibility and reduce security and operational risks
• Support the implementation and integration of Claude AI into the technology environment
• Strengthen IT governance and controls to support SOX regulatory compliance requirements, enhance the user experience, and provide the specialized expertise required to support both technology and business operations.

To achieve these goals, the company partnered with Auxis Grant Thornton to design and implement a comprehensive managed infrastructure and cybersecurity program. Leveraging nearly 30 years of IT modernization and shared services experience, Auxis Grant Thornton delivers operate-to-transform outsourcing – combining operational execution with end-to-end modernization to accelerate AI, automation, and cost efficiency while lowering digital transformation risks.

Rather than separating IT infrastructure transformation from outsourcing, this model enabled the client to stabilize the existing environment while modernizing it at the same time.

Given the client’s lean operating footprint and budget, Auxis Grant Thornton implemented a shared services solution from its nearshore centers in Costa Rica and Colombia, providing cost-effective access to enterprise-grade capabilities, greater capacity, and specialized expertise. Leveraging Auxis Grant Thornton’s nearshore IT outsourcing teams enabled the client to benefit from tailored solutions without the investment required to build those resources internally.

Auxis Grant Thornton also took on a consulting role, proactively recommending tools and technologies needed to support the client’s cloud and infrastructure modernization. Recommendations included clear business rationale and cost estimates, enabling leadership to make informed technology decisions.

Auxis Grant Thornton’s comprehensive IT managed services solution included:

24/7 infrastructure monitoring and management

Auxis Grant Thornton’s Network Operating Center (NOC) & System Administrators perform administration, maintenance, and 24/7 monitoring of the client’s infrastructure, ensuring high availability, performance, and reliability of critical infrastructure.

The Auxis infrastructure support team strengthened infrastructure stability, availability, and performance through:

• Standardized IT processes. These included documented runbooks and governance for incident and change management, and day-to-day administration and support of in-scope infrastructure systems.
• Proactive performance management. Leveraged root cause analysis, performance tuning, and proactive issue prevention.
• Ongoing infrastructure administration, maintenance, and resilience. Achieved through server and operating system administration, patch management, configuration management, backup administration, disaster recovery support, security remediation, and ongoing platform maintenance.
• Continuous performance optimization. Enhanced operational efficiency through SLA/KPI reporting, operational reviews, capacity planning, system lifecycle management, and identification of automation and optimization opportunities.

Proactive cybersecurity operations built from the ground up

The client’s security operations were at a foundational stage. With its small IT team focused primarily on day-to-day operations, it had limited capacity for proactive security monitoring or comprehensive cybersecurity transformation.

These gaps created significant cyber risk while also threatening its ability to comply with SOX compliance requirements.

Auxis Grant Thornton built the client’s cybersecurity operations from the ground up, delivering:

• 24/7 monitoring and threat response. Continuous monitoring, threat detection, triage, investigation, and escalation, supported by advanced security tools such as SentinelOne and Wazuh SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) to consolidate capabilities and automate repetitive activities.
• Infrastructure and identity protection. Implemented server, identity, and infrastructure security through enhanced controls designed to reduce exposure across the environment.
• Continuous vulnerability and risk management. Established ongoing vulnerability assessments, remediation tracking, security hardening, and compliance support to systemically identify and address risks.
• Automation and security optimization. Reduced operational overhead and strengthened protection by leveraging security tool and custom automations, fine-tuning controls, and implementing cybersecurity best practices.

Modernizing and optimizing workplace technology and critical business applications

Auxis Grant Thornton is modernizing the client’s workplace technology while providing ongoing administration, optimization, and support for critical business applications and their integration with the cloud platforms.

• M365 transition. The client was using both Google Workspace and M365 for office applications, creating duplicated costs, fragmented administration, and limited standardization. Auxis Grant Thornton is leading consolidation onto M365, recommending a higher licensing tier to strengthen security and compliance while simplifying platform administration.
• AI implementation. Leveraging its deep experience implementing AI for clients, Auxis Grant Thornton is driving deployment of the Claude AI assistant across the organization. The initiative includes implementation support, integration with existing systems and workflows, and governance to enable effective, secure adoption.
• ERP support. Auxis Grant Thornton provides ongoing support for the client’s ERP and financial systems, helping improve availability, performance, cloud integration, and compliance with business and regulatory requirements.
  
  For instance, key processes, workflows, and approval structures within the client’s NetSuite ERP were not consistently maintained, while contracted vendor support hours were significantly underutilized. Auxis Grant Thornton established stronger application governance and support practices, helping the client make better use of its NetSuite investment and address application issues and enhancements more effectively.

Cloud migration strategy and support

The client had hired a vendor to migrate its legacy on-premises infrastructure to the cloud. However, once Auxis Grant Thornton came onboard, its deep knowledge and experience with cloud technology implementations led the client to add transition support and post-move management of the cloud environment to its scope.

Auxis Grant Thornton hit the ground running, delivering:

• IT infrastructure modernization and consolidation. Streamlining legacy systems and eliminating redundant technologies to improve operational efficiency and prepare the environment for modernization.
• Cloud migration support. Providing planning and operational support for migrating infrastructure, applications, and services while minimizing business disruption. Auxis Grant Thornton works closely with the migration vendor to ensure the right access, tools, permissions, and operational support are in place for effective execution.
• Cloud resilience and business continuity. Implementing cloud-native backup, disaster recovery, high availability, and resilience capabilities to strengthen service continuity and reduce operational risk.

Robust compliance framework

The client’s limited IT security and monitoring capabilities created significant compliance risk, particularly around SOX requirements. Beyond strengthening cybersecurity, Auxis Grant Thornton established a more robust compliance framework:

• IT controls and governance. Aligned IT operations with SOX requirements, internal controls, and corporate governance standards.
• Compliance embedded into operations. Integrated control requirements into day-to-day operational processes, workflows, and IT service management (ITSM) ticketing to ensure consistent execution and accountability.
• Ongoing compliance management. Managed recurring activities such as User Access Reviews (UARs), IT control testing, and change, patch and vulnerability management.
• Audit readiness. Established processes for collecting, documenting, and maintaining audit evidence to support internal and external compliance reviews and simplify compliance reporting.

Across all service areas, the Auxis Grant Thornton team works closely with the client’s business users, application owners, and infrastructure and security teams to accelerate issue resolution, maintain alignment across functions, and support evolving business priorities.

Within the first few months of the engagement, Auxis Grant Thornton delivered significant improvements across a wide range of IT functions – modernizing and stabilizing the client’s technology environment, accelerating cybersecurity transformation, reducing operational risk, and improving compliance readiness.

These improvements were made possible by significantly expanding the client’s IT capabilities. Auxis Grant Thornton’s shared services model extended the client’s two-person IT operations with a cross-functional team of NOC engineers, cybersecurity specialists, AI engineers, application support specialists, and other specialized resources.

The added capacity and expertise enabled the client to move beyond reactive issue resolution and daily firefighting to strategic modernization initiatives aligned with its long-term business objectives.

While the cloud environment migration and M365 transition remain in progress, key results to date include:

Enterprise-grade IT capabilities with 60+% cost avoidance

Auxis Grant Thornton’s nearshore IT managed services solution gave the client immediate access to 24/7 monitoring and support, comprehensive security services, broader technical and AI expertise, enterprise-grade tools, standardized IT processes, and the ability to focus internal resources on strategic priorities.

This greatly expanded the client’s IT capabilities beyond what was being provided by its two-member team without increasing overall costs – achieving 60+% cost avoidance compared with building equivalent capabilities in-house.

65% fewer security tickets and 54% fewer infrastructure tickets

Auxis Grant Thornton closed critical IT gaps by introducing proactive infrastructure monitoring, vulnerability management, dedicated support for mission-critical applications, and enterprise-grade security capabilities. The sharp decline in tickets demonstrates the impact: a more stable, secure technology environment with fewer disruptions and significantly less reactive firefighting.

~70% of IT tickets resolved within 12 hours

Expanded monitoring and specialized support enabled Auxis Grant Thornton to identify and address issues quickly, with approximately 70% of tickets resolved within 12 hours. The team continues to identify automation opportunities to further streamline security operations, improve response times, and shift resources toward higher-value activities.

55% drop in monthly alerts

After proactive monitoring initially surfaced a spike in infrastructure and security alerts, the Auxis Grant Thornton team optimized thresholds and policies to eliminate noise and prioritize actionable events, reducing alerts by 55% within four months. The improved signal-to-noise ratio enables faster response to critical issues and less time investigating low-value alerts.

Building the tech foundation for a digital-first business

With the expertise and capacity to advance the M365 transition, Claude AI deployment, and cloud transformation journey, Auxis Grant Thornton is helping the client reduce modernization risk while creating a more scalable, secure, AI-enabled technology foundation to support its transition to a digital-first business.

Stronger NetSuite support and greater ROI

Auxis Grant Thornton significantly improved NetSuite support while increasing utilization of the client’s previously underused vendor support services. The client has reported strong improvements in support quality, helping drive more effective issue resolution, a better user experience, and greater value from its NetSuite investment.

Strengthened SOX compliance and audit readiness

By embedding control testing, evidence collection, and other compliance requirements into daily operations, Auxis Grant Thornton created a more consistent and sustainable approach to SOX compliance – strengthening governance, reducing compliance risk, and keeping the organization audit-ready.

A strategic partnership focused on continuous modernization

Throughout the engagement, Auxis Grant Thornton built a strong partnership with client leadership focused on continuous modernization and long-term business priorities. As a trusted advisor, Auxis Grant Thornton continues to identify opportunities to strengthen the client’s tech environment, advance modernization, and expand capabilities as business needs evolve.

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