Challenge / Goal
A veterinary and pet care startup had an aggressive growth plan to open 200 pet care centers in three to five years. They needed a trusted IT consulting partner to help them:
- Establish IT standards from the ground up
- Enable a collaborative community for pet parents, pet services providers and pet product manufacturers for networking, pet care information, training, telehealth and other value-added services
- Support their full technology infrastructure needs and store rollout schedule
- Define strategic IT initiatives for their omnichannel client engagement strategy
The company decided to adopt a “Cloud as a Service” approach to reduce capital expenditures and quickly build the infrastructure they needed to run their business. Their business and IT challenges included:
- Establishing IT standards for technology, process and governance
- Selection of key IT business partners to deliver essential services
- Maintaining a consistent and controlled IT spend
- Managing the build-out of new facilities and onboarding of acquired site locations
- Staffing IT professionals required for omnichannel engagement to attract and retain clients
- Meeting key progress benchmarks and growth projections with their funding partner
Solution
Bridgenext (formerly Emtec) delivered a comprehensive solution which included IT consulting and strategic planning, Virtual CIO services and managed IT infrastructure services to support their company’s accelerated growth goals. Our approach focused on four key phases:
Phase 1: Technology Roadmap Services
- Establishing end user device standards (design, product selection and deployment)
- Designing and building out a virtual “Cloud Data Center” utilizing Microsoft Azure
- Office 365 email and Active Directory design and deployment on Microsoft Azure Group policy
- Networking technology strategy and design
- BYOD/MDM strategy and implementation
- IT governance standards policy creation
Phase 2: Acquired Facility Audit and Migration Services
- Full technology discovery and assessment of acquired facilities
- Analysis and roadmap for site IT migration to meet company architecture compliance
- Project management of technology migrations for acquired facilities
Phase 3: “IT Startup in a Box”
- Full technology rollout of new pet care centers which includes project management, technology procurement, configuration and installation based on established technology standards
- Ongoing help desk and onsite support services for medical and back-office staff
- Enterprise service management training for HR processes
Phase 4: Ongoing Fully Managed Infrastructure Services
- Virtual CIO services
- Program management
- End user support via enterprise service desk/help desk services
- Onsite IT support services
- Cloud, server and network management
- Business application management
- Cybersecurity management
Results
With Bridgenext fully managing their technology footprint, the company was able to focus 100% on business growth, operational excellence, profitability and customer experience. Their partnership with our team provided:
- State-of-the-art IT operations that fuel accelerated growth
- New facilities fully IT enabled within two days
- Highly mature service management model
- Seamless onboarding/offboarding of employees via enterprise service management
- Reduced liability exposure from established IT governance methods
