Huws Gray Group, the UK’s largest independent builders’ merchant, has adopted the ControlUp ONE platform to optimize its IT operations across its extensive network of 335 branches and more than 4,000 endpoints.
Founded in 1990 and significantly expanded through the 2021 acquisition of Grafton Group’s UK merchanting business, the company now operates a diverse portfolio of 13 brands and employs over 4,000 staff nationwide.
Following its acquisition-driven growth, Huws Gray faced the challenge of managing a complex IT environment that includes a mix of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions — Citrix Workspace and Azure Virtual Desktop — as well as thousands of physical Windows-based laptops and desktops. To streamline operations and enhance digital performance, the company turned to ControlUp, seeking a unified digital employee experience (DEX) platform capable of supporting both on-premises and cloud-based systems.
“ControlUp provides us with 24/7 monitoring, alerts, and automated remediation, which helps us prevent issues before our colleagues even notice them,” said Chief Technology Officer Nathan Draper.
The platform was deployed across VDI environments and Windows 11 devices used by onsite, remote, and home-based employees accessing the network via VPN.
The implementation has profoundly improved the company’s IT support efficiency. Meurig Parry, Head of IT Infrastructure, noted that ControlUp offers a holistic view of their systems, enabling the team to perform tasks like script execution, disk space management, user profile maintenance, and SAN storage oversight more effectively. The platform’s real-time monitoring has led to significant reductions in support tickets — saving over 40 hours monthly — allowing the 15-person support team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than reactive troubleshooting.
Parry highlighted that automation features, such as automatically restarting applications and cleaning up outdated user data, have enhanced system performance. Additionally, customizable thresholds facilitate better capacity planning, enabling the IT team to predict infrastructure needs and automate alerts and remedial actions when thresholds are exceeded. Monitoring of critical business applications, including CAD tools and proof-of-delivery systems, has also been improved, reducing downtime and ensuring operational continuity. The platform’s visibility into endpoint performance, even for remote users, further helps identify issues like Wi-Fi reliability and software problems, all presented through ControlUp’s DEX scoring tools.
