Busy Bees
Total deployed the Citrix platform to support their growing business

Total implemented a remote desktop solution for Busy Bees’ staff at nurseries across the UK, based on Citrix XenApp. The solution is easy to manage and reliable, and provides a familiar Windows desktop for nursery staff. Citrix XenDesktop was implemented to deliver a fully virtualised desktop to around 300 staff at Busy Bees’ two main offices.
At a Glance
Busy Bees was founded in 1983 by three families unable to find the quality of childcare they wanted for their own children. Since then it has grown to become the UK’s largest childcare nursery provider, with 237 nurseries across the country, caring for around 30,000 children. Busy Bees retains its founders’ child-centred approach, and the individual interests, safety and happiness of every child remain central to the care they receive.
Services Delivered
Technologies Deployed
Industry Sector
Business Driver


Challenge
Busy Bees was growing and didn't have the internal IT solutions to support this growth. At the time, they had only 30 nurseries in the UK and they tried to do the IT in the back offices. As time went on, they needed the nurseries to do this themselves to accommodate the growth they were seeing. They needed everyone to connect to the servers at the head office.
Solution
Total proposed implementing the latest version of Citrix. We came in and redesigned the system starting from scratch. We put new hardware in the offices and provided an even better version of Citrix, so users could access what was needed. Users now had easier and quicker access to their systems, allowing work to continue as usual.
Outcome
There are lots of benefits to having systems improved. The main one is that users can get more done in less time, and users can access their data and systems from wherever they are in the world.
More recently, Busy Bees have implemented the use of XenApp. Total helped deliver this application and design it according to Busy Bees business requirements. It has improved the systems at the nursery and the team love it!
Taking Care of Technology
There's a greater demand than ever for businesses to utilise technology and we are here to make that process simple.
Paul Creaser
Head of IT at Busy Bees

If we do have any issues, the Total team get on board, get logged on and get it sorted for us, which is brilliant.
The future of IT across the business is massive. More and more staff will be having tablets and smartphones, and they need to be able to access their data from those tablets and smartphones when they need to. Again, with Citrix and Total, we are going to be able to offer them that.
Overall, Busy Bees have grown since onboarding a new IT system and support. Total is helping to put together a facility where we will have two data centres where Total will look after all the servers which causes less headache for me.
The service we have had from Total over the years has been phenomenal. They have given us guidance and advice on what systems and processes are best and how they can help us improve our business. They have just always been there for us.