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Customer: Saïd Business School, University of Oxford |
Sector: Higher Education |
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Challenge: Legacy on-premise infrastructure that was out of support, lacked resilience and disaster recovery capability, causing instability, outages and loss of confidence in IT |
Result: Fully cloud-based Azure platform delivering near-100% availability, lower costs, and enabling AI adoption |
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Key outcomes: 36 services migrated with zero disruption ~100% availability achieved 25% reduction in infrastructure cost 91% customer satisfaction Thousands of hours saved through AI-enabled workflows |
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Saïd Business School, part of the University of Oxford, is a globally recognised institution delivering world-class education and research.
Its Executive MBA has been ranked No.1 in the world by QS for three consecutive years, reflecting the School’s commitment to excellence and continuous innovation.
Saïd Business School is recognised globally for excellence in education and research. At the start of the transformation programme, its technology estate had grown organically over time, leaving the School reliant on ageing on-premise infrastructure that was increasingly difficult to support, scale and recover.
The result was instability.
Frequent outages disrupted teaching, research and operations
Infrastructure lacked scalability to support growth
Confidence in IT services was eroding
Reflecting on the environment as it was a decade ago, CDIO Mark Bramwell said:
“The infrastructure was broken. It was all on premise. I was sending apologetic emails out to the business every week for losses of service.”
For a high-performance academic institution, this wasn’t just an IT issue, it was a reputational risk.
Failure to modernise would mean:
Ongoing disruption to students and faculty
Inability to support digital learning and research innovation
Increasing operational cost and risk
The School needed more than an upgrade. It needed a complete reset, without disrupting learning.
Intercity delivered a structured, outcome-led transformation, designed to redefine how IT operated.
The programme focused on:
Assessing the existing environment and risks
Designing a secure Azure foundation aligned to best practice
Migrating 36 services into a modern cloud platform
Introducing governance, automation and standardisation
Transitioning to Microsoft 365 and a SaaS-led operating model
To support long-term success, Intercity also implemented a new operating model, introducing:
Self-service capabilities
Automated processes
Consistent governance across the estate
The goal was clear:
Create a platform that was not just stable today, but ready for future innovation.
The transformation fundamentally changed how the School operates.
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Reliability & availability Near 100% uptime across services Zero disruption during migration Dramatically improved stability and resilience What was once a reactive environment became dependable, almost invisible. |
Cost & efficiency 25% reduction in infrastructure cost Reduced management overhead through automation and standardisation The organisation moved from maintaining infrastructure… to focusing on higher-value work. |
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User experience 91% customer satisfaction score Improved performance and reliability across services IT shifted from a source of friction to an enabler. |
Security & governance Stronger security posture through Microsoft-native tooling Improved governance and control across the environment The outcome: Risk was reduced, and confidence restored. |
From cloud to innovation (AI impact)
The most significant change came after the migration.
With the appropriate Azure foundations in place, the School was able to immediately move into AI-enabled working:
Adoption of Azure Machine Learning
Rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot
Expansion of automation and AI-driven workflows
This has already delivered:
Thousands of hours saved across staff and faculty
More time spent on teaching, research and strategic work
The School didn’t just modernise IT. It created a platform for continuous innovation.
“On the very rare occasions when things break or go wrong and they do, because we work in technology, they actually stand out more because of how far we’ve come.”
Mark Bramwell, CDIO
Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
If you’re leading IT in a complex organisation, this story should feel familiar.
Legacy infrastructure.
Growing demand.
Pressure to modernise, without disruption.
This case shows what’s possible when transformation is done properly:
Stability enabling innovation
Structure enabling scale
Outcomes before technology
And most importantly: A move from firefighting… to enabling the future.
