A small public corporation with multiple US offices, in its fourth year post spin-off from its parent, lacked an IT infrastructure plan or roadmap. It did not have adequate disaster recovery or business continuity plans or capabilities. And the business was growing at about 100% each year, putting increasing strains on the file, e-mail and network environments. The business was planning to move to new HQ office space.
The senior management team was not aware of the severity of the issues or the associated risks. The IT team had not created an appropriate technology roadmap.
As the IT leader, I helped the management team to focus on the key issues. The organization completed a comprehensive review and update of the business continuity plan. The IT infrastructure team provided an assessment of stability, scalability and risks across the entire platform. A technical architecture plan was created with the move and growth of the business in mind.
As a result….
- All of the critical application and data infrastructure of the business was moved to a Class A co-location facility nearby and the new office space was set up with robust and redundant network connections to the co-lo.
- Significant upgrades were performed on business critical servers and applications, including Microsoft Exchange.
- VOIP telephony was implemented across the business’ 6+ office locations in the US, UK and Europe – reducing the overall cost of voice telecommunications by nearly 50% during a major business expansion into the EU.
- At the conclusion, the business’ infrastructure was able to support the global requirements without interruption by Florida weather or other unexpected events – and the business continued to grow rapidly and profitably.