From outdated hosted desktop to a custom cloud ecosystem.

WikiTech’s first priority was getting UK Pool Store off the ageing terminal server and onto something modern. The replacement was Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), Microsoft’s cloud-native solution that delivers a full Windows 11 virtual PC experience, properly integrated with Microsoft 365.

Crucially, AVD made full use of the Microsoft 365 Business Premium licences UK Pool Store were already paying for, eliminating the separate hosted desktop licensing cost entirely. The performance difference was immediate: staff went from a sluggish remote desktop to a fast, responsive cloud environment.

Alongside the migration, WikiTech conducted a full audit of every subscription and software tool in use. Overlapping services were identified and consolidated, removing unnecessary spend and simplifying the stack.

As WikiTech developed a deep understanding of how UK Pool Store operated, it became clear that the business had outgrown off-the-shelf tools. Managing product listings, stock, sales leads, quotes, and supplier data across WooCommerce, WordPress, and multiple spreadsheets was slow and error-prone. WordPress and WooCommerce are excellent for running a shop, but they’re not built for operational management at scale.

WikiTech designed and built a fully custom cloud ERP application: a central platform that brought together every part of the business into one place. Mass product updates that previously took hours were reduced to minutes. Margin and profit checks that required jumping between systems were surfaced instantly. The application integrated directly with the shop websites, meaning changes flowed through automatically.

Glan estimates the business is at least 25% more productive as a result, driven by automation removing repetitive manual tasks, accurate real-time reporting replacing guesswork, and staff spending their time on work that actually moves the business forward.

As the custom ERP matured and staff increasingly worked through the cloud application, the need for Azure Virtual Desktop diminished. The infrastructure it had solved for, remote access to business tools, was now handled natively by the app itself. The migration from Sage 50 to Xero also played a part: Sage 50 is desktop software that had previously required the Azure server to run, so moving to Xero’s cloud-based platform removed that dependency entirely. With the ERP in the cloud and accounts in Xero, there was no longer any reason to maintain an Azure virtual desktop, so WikiTech decommissioned AVD entirely, transitioning staff to local devices managed through Microsoft Intune.

Every device was enrolled into Intune and secured with Conditional Access policies. The configuration is strict: only company-registered, fully compliant devices are permitted to access business data. Personal devices, unknown machines, and anything that doesn’t meet the compliance baseline are blocked outright, regardless of whether the credentials are correct.

This isn’t just a cost reduction. It’s a fundamentally more secure posture, and as the phishing story below shows, it has already proven its worth in a real attack scenario.