About the customer

Established in 1888, Larking Gowen, a chartered accountancy and business advisory firm, has over 400 people in their team, across five offices in East Anglia. They offer audit, tax, digital accounting, and business advisory support services tailored to a wide range of sectors, including farms and landed estates, tourism, healthcare, professional services, and not-for-profit.

The challenge

Larking Gowen has seen major growth in recent years, plus as a training firm, sees a regular change in people numbers each year with an annual intake of graduates and trainees.
They needed an IT platform that could keep pace with that momentum, without problems or downtime for teams delivering client work. Their priorities were clear:

• Protect billable time: with work billed on a chargeable time basis, even brief disruption has a measurable impact on revenue and client service.
•Improve day-to-day reliability: they wanted consistent performance and responsive support that their people could trust.
•Increase speed and scalability: creating a high-performance environment that can scale seamlessly as the business continues to grow.
•Modernise core capabilities: through stronger and more reliable cloud hosting, connectivity and communications to support a growing, distributed workforce.
•Strengthen security and compliance: with managed controls aligned to the expectations of a regulated professional services environment.

These goals led prompted Larking Gowen to seek a new technology partner, ultimately choosing us for a scalable, secure, comprehensive solution backed up by vendor backed skilled consultants and ongoing strategic advisory services.

“Wavenet are our trusted IT partner delivering our core network, help desk support, mobile and data services and, importantly, security services. I use the term ‘trusted partner’ because that’s what the Wavenet team are. They work with us, listen, advise, and challenge our thought processes. I see their team as part of our team.”

Richard White
CIO, Larking Gowen

You can watch what Richard White, the CIO at Larking Gowen, has to say about working with Wavenet here.

The solution

We delivered a managed services partnership designed to support Larking Gowen’s immediate needs, while enabling longer-term transformation.

We began our partnership with them by providing hosting services designed not only to support, but to help Larking Gowen modernise and evolve its wider technology estate. Over time, the relationship has expanded to a multi-service partnership covering:

• 24/7 service desk support and managed IT operations for end-user and infrastructure incidents.
• Azure cloud hosting migration and managed cloud services.
• Consolidated connectivity: mobile, networking, and full UC services.
• Telephony migrations support to 8x8 (project planning, execution, and cutover).
• Licence migration from Microsoft 365 E3 to E5, including planning, deployment, and ongoing management.
• CyberGuard managed security suite: endpoint protection, vulnerability management, advanced threat detection.
• SIEM monitoring and log management integrated into CyberGuard for real-time security event detection and response.
• Penetration testing and compliance controls to meeting professional services regulatory requirements.
• Device and lifecycle management, proactive patching, and configuration management.
• Dedicated account management, regular strategic engagement, and roadmap planning.
• Ongoing consultancy to identify and introduce solutions that improve operational efficiency, resilience, and long-term growth.

"Wavenet's commitment is reflected not just in their ability to grow with us, supporting our 70% growth in turnover, with both hands-on timely delivery from a trusted team and ongoing strategic IT support."

Richard White

CIO, Larking Gowen

The results

Our partnership has helped Larking Gowen move beyond treating IT as a utility, creating a more resilient, scalable, and secure platform that support day-to-day operations and long-term growth. This has delivered measurable outcomes across the business, including:

• Growth enabled: scalable infrastructure supporting regular increase in teams, including onboarding annual graduate intakes with ease
• Improved time efficiency: faster systems and higher availability reduce disruption, helping teams complete tasks more quickly and protect billable hours
• Greater reliability: significantly reduced downtime, with consistent service quality and clear accountability through us as a single provider
• Cost predicatability: consolidated services have simplified supplier management and created a more predictable approach to budgeting
• Stronger security and compliance: CyberGuard, SIEM, and regular penetration testing have improved threat visibility and reinforced alignment with regulatory requirements
• Ongoing strategic value: regular engagement and proactive recommendations continue to support operational improvements and future technology adoption

If you’d like to find out more about how we could help your business with the areas covered in this case study, then get in touch at enquiries@wavenet.co.uk.