Success Story:
A Stress-Relieving Workout Leads to Cure for Client's IT Headaches

Background
Liberty Flooring is a fast-growing commercial flooring company that specializes in resilient, hardwood, and carpet installations. Founded in 2002, the Cinnaminson, New Jersey-based Liberty works independently and with con-tractors on comprehensive projects in and around Philadelphia. Following an initial two years of getting operations up and running, company revenues really started to take off in 2004, going from $2.5 million then to $10 million today.

The Challenge
As with any business, the fast growth brought its share of headaches, a number of them caused by challenges in in-formation technology. The primary pain was a result of a peer-to-peer network lacking centralization of data, including e-mail and backups. SPAM was a major bottleneck, as was having users dispersed among multiple offices. In addition, ineffective technology consulting support slowed down workflow and interfered with efficient communication. The person most often required to get control of the chaos was Chief Financial Officer Andrea Walheim. When not performing her regular duties of managing Liberty’s finances, Andrea was the internal point person for IT issues. Last fall, when IT problems started to become more the norm than the exception, Walheim knew she had to make a change.

The Solution
Walheim is an avid cyclist who frequently rides the scenic Kelly Drive route in Philadelphia. On one of her rides there last fall she happened to meet some other cyclists with whom she had more in common than cycling. Turns out they had all encountered past problems with IT consultants. After sharing some bad memories, she asked if anyone in the group could recommend a reliable consultant. Through a colleague, one of the riders knew of IT Solutions, made the referral to her, and a short time later a plan was in place to get Liberty on the road to stability.

IT Solutions implemented a server solution using Windows Small Business Server 2003 to centralize e-mail through Microsoft Exchange and a Virtual Private Network setup for efficient, secure remote network access. By bringing mail hosting in-house, Liberty staff realized immediate benefits with improved communications and increased collaboration. With Exchange and the corresponding Outlook client available to all users, e-mail was now easily monitored and controlled internally. And users could share and update each other’s calendars, contacts, and tasks.

Additionally, ITS helped Liberty get control over SPAM with our SpamSoap service recommendation. Reliable daily backups of the server were made available through a simple, easy-to-administer solution using industry leader Symantec’s Backup Exec software. And virus problems became a thing of the past courtesy of Symantec’s AntiVirus software. The server solution also provided the proper platform for hosting an industry-appropriate accounting and project management software solution, which Liberty plans to implement sometime this spring.

Following successful cutover to the server environment, users received orientation on Outlook 2003 from ITS. For added security and ongoing preventative maintenance of the entire network, Liberty enrolled in the IT Solutions SharedVision program. So now when there’s a technology-related issue, usually ITS knows about it first and can proactively troubleshoot it before it hampers productivity.

The Return
Replacing the inefficiencies and threats to data associated with a peer-to-peer network with a stable, secure client-server-based solution has helped Liberty Flooring staff focus their attentions on the business, not technology.

"IT Solutions has been great though this entire process," Walheim commented. "They managed to quickly integrate the data from the two locations and show us how to manage our data better. They solved all of the problems that arose during integration quickly and professionally. Now we have no idea how we tolerated the previous scenario for so long!"