Case Studies
We're proud of the quality of our products and the effectiveness of our services. But what really turns us on is bringing everything together to create a technology solution that truly contributes to the success of your business. Here are some examples.
Case 1 - Increased Productivity Through Centralisation
Situation and Issues
An established industrial organisation was achieving solid growth. They had two sites, with their accounting software located at the Head Office. This led to some efficiency issues caused by frequent double handling and duplication as well as communication difficulties. The tangible cost of these inefficiencies was estimated to be around $30,000 pa. The intangible cost created by administrative errors, staff dissatisfaction and lack of current management information would have added thousands more to the bottom line.
The key issues were centralisation and collaboration. We needed to provide the technology to allow them to directly input their jobs and invoices from the remote site into their main accounting software in real time. This would resolve the issues since everyone would be working with the same data and produce current management information.
Solution and Benefits
There were three parts to the solution:
- We created a Virtual Private Network (VPN) between the two sites as well and key staff's homes using Cisco routers. VPN is an industry term describing the connection of different sites in a secure manner. Cisco is a world leader in this technology.
- We implemented a Microsoft Terminal Server. Since Internet speeds are much slower than your internal network, this technology effectively speeds up performance to be comparable to working 'locally'.
- We liaised with the customer's accountant to provide an environment that would run MYOB Enterprise. This was required to cater to the increased number of staff using the system.
This investment had a Payback Period of 6 months. The business now runs more effectively and our customer is in a much better position to manage their continued growth.
Case 2 - Back to Work in a Flash
Situation and Issues
A well regarded Software Development company was making inroads into international markets. Keeping systems running was becoming very important so they asked us to set up a Disaster recovery plan.
Solution and Benefits
While we needed to minimise downtime, we also needed to keep the direct cost down. The solution was fairly simple.
- We implemented a $1200 solution comprising an external hard drive from LaCie and LiveState (now called System Recovery) from Symantec. This rapid recovery solution takes regular snap shots of the server information and stores it on the external drive. It’s not a replacement for tape drive devices, more an additional level of protection.
Within 12 months of the implementation their server had a significant software crash. This meant that, while the server didn't have a physical problem, it was unusable. This type of issue could have easily resulted in a week of downtime. Using this solution we were able to get their 25 staff back to work in less than 3 hours. The investment of $1200 saved the customer $20K in sunk downtime labour costs.