As one of the UK’s leading accountancy firms, Bishop Fleming’s ambition isn’t just about numbers, it’s about building for the future. Acquisitions, growth and bold plans demand a technology platform that’s secure, scalable and always ready to adapt.
Bishop Fleming is one of the UK’s leading
accountancy and advisory firms, with a strong
presence across the South West and West
Midlands. Their expertise spans audit, tax,
accounting, and business advisory services,
supporting clients of all sizes, from individuals
through to large organisations.
But Bishop Fleming is far from a firm that rests
on tradition. They’re ambitious, acquisitive and
strategic, with bold growth plans for the coming
years. To make those ambitions a reality, they
needed more than just day-to-day IT support.
They needed a trusted partner who could help
them create and deliver a technical strategy built
for scale.
A relationship built on trust
For years, Bishop Fleming’s connection with Kascade was light but steady. They came along to our events to stay ahead of the latest technology trends, and we kept in touch. But the move of a key office, which housed their primary data centre, put strategy firmly in the spotlight. Add in their ambitious growth plans, and it was clear the firm needed a partner who could look beyond quick fixes and help build a modern, secure and resilient IT platform that would carry them into the future.
Those early touchpoints mattered. By staying connected over time, and by sharing knowledge at our events, we’d already laid the groundwork for trust. When the time came to think bigger, Bishop Fleming knew who to turn to.
Designing a multi-year technology roadmap
The engagement began with a full discovery exercise and strategy planning meeting. This wasn’t about replacing existing suppliers – it was about filling a gap, offering impartial guidance, and helping to shape a robust technical strategy. From this initial work, Bishop Fleming was impressed with our approach and outcome. Therefore, we were brought in to undertake a more in-depth project, to design their multi-year technical strategy. We worked closely with their Chief Technology Officer, Managing Partner, technology team, and Technology Committee to fully understand their business drivers and challenges. This collaborative process allowed us to blend Bishop Fleming’s ambitions with our own expertise and our sector knowledge. Together, we built a clear strategy that not only addressed immediate infrastructure decisions but also set the firm up for long-term success.
References also played an important role. Bishop Fleming wanted reassurance that Kascade wasn’t just a safe pair of hands technically, but also
understood the nuances of the accountancy sector. The fact that we were already working with respected firms like Milsted Langdon LLP and Hazlewoods LLP gave Bishop Fleming that extra confidence.
Crucially, Bishop Fleming wasn’t just looking for a short engagement. They wanted a strategic and proactive relationship – a partner who would stay the course, guiding them as their needs evolved and continuously improving their technology capabilities.
A critical juncture
During the process, Bishop Fleming was facing a pivotal moment that needed to be defined and shaped as part of the onward strategy. Bishop Fleming was moving one of their offices, which happened to be the office that their primary data centre was hosted in. This posed a question and the timeline forced a decision: how should they evolve their infrastructure?
After exploring the options together and mapping these against Bishop Fleming’s long-term strategy, it became clear that a cloud-first approach was the right direction. It was scalable, secure and capable of supporting their ambitious growth plans. But this wasn’t about us prescribing a single path; it was a joint decision, shaped through open discussion of risks, opportunities, and timescales. While hybrid was considered as a contingency, both teams agreed that a cloud-first strategy, supported by carefully designed mitigation plans, would give Bishop Fleming the confidence to move forward without compromise.
The first step was planning. Together, we designed and planned a cloud architecture to serve both today’s needs and tomorrow’s ambitions. That included:
- A secure Azure Landing Zone to provide a strong, well-governed foundation
- A roadmap for replacing Citrix with Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)
- A clear migration journey from on-premises to cloud
- Security and resilience as non-negotiables from day one
“Kascade delivered the project on time and within budget, despite the many moving parts. Considering the complexity involved, it was amazing nothing critical was missed. Most importantly, the new environment has set us up perfectly for future growth, something our old environment could never have supported. Without this, we’d have faced major challenges.”
Andrew Yearsley
Chief Technology Officer, Bishop Fleming
Setting the foundations
A key element to this (as with any cloud migration) was to build a solid plan. Kascade worked with Bishop Fleming to design the right landing zone in Azure and create a cloud architecture that would support both today’s needs and future growth. This included planning for Azure Virtual Desktop to replace their Citrix environment, shaping a clear migration roadmap, and putting disaster recovery and resilience front and centre
Migrating to Azure
With the plan agreed, we moved into deployment. We built the core Azure foundation, established the network and management structure, and
deployed the new AVD environment. From there, workloads were carefully migrated from on-premises to the cloud using Azure Site Recovery,
ensuring business continuity throughout. Every step was tested to make sure systems worked as expected before going live.
Securing and strengthening
Once in Azure, the focus turned to security and resilience. Security has always been high on Bishop Fleming’s agenda – and it was front and centre throughout this project.
- Disaster recovery: Bishop Fleming adopted Kascade Recover, our Azure-based managed DR service. This meant they could continuously improve and test their recovery posture, backed by our experts.
- Backup: For backups, Bishop Fleming selected Kascade Backup, powered by Druva. Its immutability gave them peace of mind that once a backup was taken, it couldn’t be tampered with. Importantly, backups weren’t stored in Azure itself – a deliberate, strategic decision. By separating production and backup data, Bishop Fleming avoided the risk of a single Azure region outage leaving them without access to critical information.
- Security operations: To round off their security posture, Bishop Fleming partnered with Arctic Wolf. This gave them enhanced risk assessment, incident response capability, and security awareness training for staff – creating a holistic approach to security that goes far beyond technology alone.
Success through collaboration
The real success of this partnership lay in the way it was delivered. We paired Kascade’s infrastructure specialists with Bishop Fleming’s technical and industry experts, working as one team from design to delivery. By combining strengths, we were able to co-create the right solution, ensuring the result was not only technically robust but also perfectly aligned to Bishop Fleming’s strategy.
A partnership for the future
The journey doesn’t stop here. What began as a critical response to a data centre closure has grown into a long-term strategic partnership. Bishop Fleming now has a resilient, scalable and secure cloud platform, underpinned by a clear multi-year strategy, and the confidence that their technology is aligned with their business ambitions.
For us at Kascade, this is exactly the kind of partnership we thrive on, being brought in not just as a supplier, but as a growth partner. And as Bishop Fleming continues on their exciting journey, we’re proud to be right there alongside them.
Ready to future-proof your tech strategy? Let’s build it together!
By partnering with Kascade, Bishop Fleming now has a secure, scalable and cloud-first platform designed to fuel their ambitious growth.
Connect with our team today to explore how we can shape a technology strategy that supports your goals – today and tomorrow.
