Handing over the keys to a smoother way of working

Greenwood & Company has let and managed homes across Surrey and Hampshire for more than 36 years. The team works from The Wool House in the centre of Farnham, and relies on its lettings software, email and phones to keep landlords and tenants happy.

When Greenwood came to MFC in the summer of 2025, the office ran on a physical server in the building. Staff logged in through thin-client terminals to a remote desktop server, which also held an older property system. Every login, file and email depended on that one machine. When it went down, the whole office stopped.

The office also had two separate internet lines, one for the phones and one for the computers, each with its own router. Neither was quick, and the phone system was due for replacement. Heather Rook, Partner, wanted the business to be simpler, more reliable and able to work from anywhere.

"We used to be tied to a box in the office. Now everything we need is in Microsoft 365, the phones follow us wherever we are, and MFC are always there when we need them. So helpful, as per usual."

Heather Rook, Partner, Greenwood & Company

MFC started with a full systems audit of the server, computers, network, backups and phones. Within days the team had security on every device, cloud backups for the server and Microsoft 365, and multi-factor authentication switched on for every user.

The internet came next. In a single morning visit in July 2025, Max combined the two lines onto one router, merged the phone and computer networks and tidied the comms cabinet. Office speeds went from 60 Mbps to 200 Mbps. Heather's verdict: "Thank you, that's wonderful! Seems to be transitioning smoothly."

In February 2026 MFC replaced the office line with a 500Mb full fibre connection and moved the phones to a hosted VoIP system. The team kept their numbers, gained hot-desking and voicemail to email, and can take calls on their mobiles with the Linkus app. MFC handed over a simple guide to the new system, so staff were confident from day one.

The team also moved onto Microsoft 365 Business Premium in February 2026, with email secured by Microsoft Defender. Day-to-day work, though, still ran through the terminals and the remote desktop server.

That changed in April 2026, when the ageing server failed without warning. Within a few hours, MFC had restored Greenwood's backups onto its own servers in the data centre, and the team was working again from MFC's infrastructure.

Rather than replace old hardware like for like, MFC brought the cloud move forward. Over the following week MFC sourced and configured six new Dell Pro 14 Essential laptops for the team, set them up on Microsoft 365 and moved the shared files into OneDrive and SharePoint. Heather and MFC then worked through the old property system to extract the last of the records.

With the team working from the cloud, the restored servers stayed in MFC's data centre as an archive, and MFC collected the physical server for secure recycling in June 2026.

"I don't have to worry about the server any more. If something isn't right, I message MFC and it's sorted."

• Local: MFC is based in Farnham, minutes from Greenwood's office.
• One supplier: IT support, Microsoft 365, internet and phones all handled by one team.
• Plain English: clear guides and no jargon for a busy lettings team.
• Security built in: endpoint protection, cloud backups and multi-factor authentication from day one.
• Careful migration: data moved in stages, with the old system kept as an archive until nothing was left behind.