Case Study

Electricity Retailer Focused On Cost-Effective Energy Solutions

Blue Star Energy is an electricity retailer based in Perth, Western Australia.

They deliver cost-effective electricity solutions for Australian homes and businesses, with a focus on managing energy use and reducing overall consumption. The team specialises in commercial electricity supply, cost management, energy efficiency services, and reliable power for commercial and industrial customers.  

Their services are built to be simple and efficient, making it easy for customers to buy, manage, and use electricity, all with a strong customer-first approach.

Business Objectives

• Reduce ongoing Microsoft SharePoint cost
• Preserve critical legacy data
• Implement “hands-off” data storage solution
• Maintain data quality for compliance, audit, and legal requirements

Executive Summary

Blue Star Energy secures long-term data storage savings with Office Solutions IT

After Blue Star stepped into the commercial solar space, they were left with a large amount of legacy data in Microsoft SharePoint. This information was critical for compliance and audits, but it was also driving up their monthly storage costs.

By partnering with Office Solutions IT for data management and backup services, Blue Star Energy now saves around $7,000 a year on SharePoint storage, while still keeping verified, redundant copies of their data available whenever they need it.

The Challenges

Holding on to almost 3TB of SharePoint data brings long-term financial inefficiencies

Blue Star Energy held a significant volume of legacy data, which was costing the business thousands of dollars each year in storage fees, in addition to internal time spent managing it. As this data continued to grow, they were also on track to require additional SharePoint storage to avoid potential service disruptions.

An OSIT Virtual CIO saw an opportunity to help Blue Star Energy cut storage costs while keeping their data audit-ready and accessible, so the team reached out to Blue Star with a practical data management and storage solution that will help reduce their long-term expenses.

The Solution

Migrated inactive SharePoint data to physical hard drives + verified copies for redundancy

An Office Solutions IT Partner first ran a data assessment to decide which information should stay in SharePoint and which could be safely moved. Any data marked as inactive was migrated to physical hard drives, each with verified copies for redundancy.

This migration involved:

• Disk-to-disk SharePoint exports
• Transfer verification and built-in fail-safes
• Minimal manual work once backups were set up

The project substantially reduced Blue Star Energy’s SharePoint storage usage and brought it comfortably below the set threshold.  Office Solutions IT also managed the end‑to‑end Microsoft 365 licensing, implementation, and logistics.

The Results

Secure, redundant storage that saves Blue Star Energy more than $7,000 a year

After the data migration project, Blue Star Energy immediately reduced their SharePoint storage fees by $600 per month. That’s $7,200 saved every year, and with ongoing savings, which they can now invest in other parts of the business.

With Office Solutions IT’s automated storage solution, which includes secure, redundant offline copies, Blue Star Energy remains compliant and prepared for audits. The project was completed smoothly, with no impact on live data or day‑to‑day operations.

Their team now works in a SharePoint environment that’s comfortably below the storage threshold without worrying about paying for extra storage licenses.