The Housing Finance Corporation
From reactive IT to boardroom-ready resilience
🏢 Industry
Financial Services
👥 Company size
30 employees
📍 Location
London
⚙️ Services Provided
Advisory & Consulting
Cyber Security & Resilience
Cloud & Modern Workplace
Managed IT Services & IT Support
The Challenge
The Housing Finance Corporation (THFC) is one of the UK’s leading specialist lenders to the housing sector, providing finance to housing associations and other registered providers. With a growing loan book and an expanding team, the business was scaling, but its technology infrastructure wasn’t keeping pace.
IT had historically sat under the remit of the Finance department, with no dedicated internal IT leadership to drive strategy or innovation. Day-to-day technology needs were managed by an incumbent MSP, but the arrangement was largely reactive, firefighting issues as they arose rather than planning ahead. Years of underinvestment had left the organisation with an ageing infrastructure, limited cyber resilience and no clear roadmap for where technology needed to go next.
As the business entered a period of significant growth, the gap between where their IT was and where it needed to be became impossible to ignore. THFC needed an independent expert to come in, assess the full picture and take ownership of turning things around.
The Solution
Cloudforce were engaged to conduct a comprehensive review of THFC’s entire IT and technology landscape, producing a three-year strategy and roadmap that was presented to senior leadership and the Audit Committee, giving the business a clear, costed plan for the first time.
A central recommendation was replacing the incumbent MSP. We ran a rigorous tender process and managed the full transition to an enterprise-grade provider, alongside migrating the business to Microsoft 365 and replacing legacy on-premise ISDN telephony with cloud-hosted VOIP.
Cyber security ran as an important thread throughout. We drove significant controls improvements, supported the business to Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation, and when THFC experienced a cyber incident, ensured swift containment and recovery, preserving data integrity and avoiding material financial impact.
Key deliverables:
- Full technology review and three-year IT strategy and roadmap
- End-to-end MSP tender, selection and transition management
- Migration from hosted Exchange to Microsoft 365
- Migration from legacy ISDN to cloud-hosted Horizon VOIP
- Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation delivery
- Provided guidance through audits and GDPR assessments
- Cyber incident response and recovery
- Ongoing SLT and Audit Committee reporting
The Results
Over four years, THFC went from an organisation with no IT strategy and a reactive, underperforming support arrangement, to one with a robust, modern and secure technology foundation. Capable of supporting significant business growth with confidence.
Fully costed 3-year IT strategy, delivering measurable visibility over technology investment
Significantly improved MSP service quality and value through competitive tender process
Measurably stronger cyber resilience, achieving Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation
Swift cyber incident containment and recovery with no financial loss or data compromise
Legacy infrastructure replaced with a modern Microsoft 365 and cloud-hosted environment
Expert board-level IT counsel maintained throughout a period of significant growth
“
When we brought Cloudforce in, we had no IT strategy, an MSP that wasn’t delivering and a growing list of risks we hadn’t fully confronted. What we got was a trusted partner who took complete ownership. From building our three-year roadmap to managing our MSP transition, strengthening our cyber resilience and keeping our board properly informed throughout. When we faced a serious cyber incident, their response was calm, decisive and effective. We couldn’t have navigated that period without them.
”
Colin Burke, Finance Director — The Housing Finance Corporation
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