Aligning Technology With Business Needs

FILTEC runs a distributed operation with 120 people across multiple locations in New Zealand and Australia, many of whom are engineers routinely working on job sites far from the office. “Flexible arrangements are a must,” Kaur notes. “And we don’t have an in-house IT person, which is why we needed a support partner for the desk-side, as well as an infrastructure partner for the back end. We also wanted strategic guidance in terms of a technology roadmap.”

She says the company is predominantly Microsoft-centric and has recently implemented NetSuite cloud enterprise resource planning software, and AWS infrastructure for backup and recovery. “This serves our business well in terms of equipping our people for mobility. The office, effectively, goes with them.”

It wasn’t always that way. The impetus for engaging Lancom Technology in 2022 came as the result of frustration with lingering legacy on-premises servers, as well as inadequate support from an existing partner. “Like a lot of organisations, we were stuck with technology we’d used for a long time, but which we recognised as a limitation. Already on a path to being a cloud-first organisation, we had to make a change – but our existing provider priced the migration excessively.”

A Relationship Of Trust

With some experience in dealing with managed services providers, Kaur says she recognised the necessity for a closer, more personal touch in aligning FILTEC’s business priorities with supporting technology. “We went to tender with this and the server decommission as key priorities,” she explains.

“Lancom impressed us with their ability to provide service nationwide and in Australia, they demonstrated several automation tools which aligned with our own technology priorities of innovate, automate and secure, and the personal touch was clear: we want relationships with the people running our systems, as that contributes to value creation.”

Significantly, Lancom also recognised the strategic necessity for retiring legacy technology to alleviate access, maintenance and cost issues.

Over the course of three years, Lancom Technology has established and maintained a relationship of trust with FILTEC, Kaur confirms. “Our account manager has the ideal blend of operational knowledge and technical understanding, translating technology solutions into concepts our engineers and leaders can understand and appreciate,” she says.

Consistently Successful Outcomes

Specific successes include retiring the legacy servers at a cost that Kaur puts at just one fifth of the previous provider’s estimate. “That was a big job and a significant win; we hated those servers and even had an internal celebration after Lancom put them into the cloud and turned them off.”

She adds that this transition was performed quietly with no impact on or disruption to the business.

Another win came with upgrading conference facilities to Microsoft Teams Rooms. “This is an example of the good, practical solutions we come to expect from Lancom,” Kaur says. “When people are working remotely, the equipment should just work, without setup, audio, or visual problems. Our previous setup caused major headaches; Lancom identified and delivered an optimal solution aligned with our technology strategy.”

Many will identify with the third touchpoint where Lancom made an impression. “As an engineering company, we deal with a lot of large CAD files. Over the years, we were constantly running out of storage capacity on SharePoint, and seemingly endlessly buying more.”

Reviewing the business requirements, Lancom recommended introducing local Network Attached Storage (NAS) with VPN access. By offloading more than 6 terabytes of data from SharePoint, and introducing an effective backup regime using the NAS, Lancom's solution will save tens of thousands of dollars annually, with the solution set to achieve full payback in just over one year.

“This was excellent value for money advice and delivery,” Kaur enthuses, “And key to the success of this initiative is our engineers have no difficulty accessing or saving their files, while the removal of these very large files from our SharePoint has also improved its overall performance.”

Getting the most from a managed services provider, says Kaur, depends on establishing and maintaining a trusted partnership. “We’re an engineering firm and IT isn’t our speciality, so we look to Lancom for their competency, and we appreciate the necessity for flexibility and understanding in delivery. We expect best of breed innovative solutions, on the recommendation of our partner.”

Kaur says that while perfection is a goal, it isn’t always a practical possibility. “Things are likely to go wrong because we’re dealing with complex technology and complex and shifting user requirements. The true test is in how things are set right, something Lancom has always been swift to acknowledge and just as quick to action.”

Again, she stresses the necessity for quality business partnership. “That’s where the translation of our requirements to technical specifications happens. It’s also where we look for advice and guidance on the best tools for the job. Lancom helps simplify technology into terms that make sense to our people; they participate in our strategic sessions for technology and assist with developing our technology roadmap.”

Finally, she says the personal touch matters more than ever. “Response, ownership of issues, and understanding our business all rests on close engagement. And Lancom does that very well.”