Is ‘try before you buy’ the future of IT upgrading?

This was the situation Daryl Sevenoaks, IT Manager at Essex-based meat wholesaler, Houlton Meats, found himself in recently. Although IT outsourcing specialists Quiss Technology had delivered the necessary IT support for many years and everything worked to the specification of the system, applications would run slowly, freeze and occasionally stop all together.

This interruption to the workflow proved frustrating to the 20-strong team at Houlton Meats, dedicated to supplying top quality meat to the retail and restaurant trade. Daryl comments on the situation: “We have been successful and expanded our workforce to cope with the increasing orders, but I felt the problem with our IT was something to do with the way the system was set up or the multitude of applications we have running, perhaps conflicting in some way.

“Calls to the helpdesk at Quiss would resolve one issue, often for something else to cause a problem soon after. I was assured by their technical support that my hardware was the problem, that it was so old and under specified that it couldn’t cope with all that we were expecting the computers to cope with now. I wasn’t convinced.”

Matt Rhodes, Commercial Services Manager at Quiss, takes up the story: “As part of the ‘WORKS’ support package Daryl was paying for, we include installation consultancy services to ensure we work proactively with clients to address issues, before they affect their business operations. We build long-term relationships with clients, often measuring them in decades rather than years and this allows us to understand not just what they do, but what they want to achieve in the future.

“Armed with this insight, we can make recommendations that will help improve their business through the effective and efficient use of leading technology to deliver commercial advantage. In the case of Houlton Meats, more users and a need for a greater throughput of work had slowed the system and made it unreliable. In basic terms, the hardware could no longer cope.

“When our report recommended a complete hardware re-fresh, it was obvious Daryl was unconvinced that newer necessarily meant better. We had to prove we were right and I suggested setting up a single new machine, with all applications and allowing each staff member to try out their job role for a day on that machine - at our expense.

“Once the machine was installed on site, set-up and tested by Phil Harrison, one of our Senior Technical Engineers, it was handed over for the two week evaluation test. We sat back confident in the result.”

Daryl concludes: “I said prove it and they did. The effects were almost immediate and productivity on that machine easily outstripped the old machines. I was tempted to order the new hardware on day one of the test, but let Quiss sweat on it for the full two weeks.

“When it came to ordering the new machines, I decided to pay the extra cost for a weekend rollout, to minimise disruption to our operations. The old equipment was removed on the Friday evening after everyone left and by first thing Monday all the new machines were installed, loaded with our applications, networked and set up optimally for each user.

“Everything works as it did before, just faster and without the interruptions we were used to. Most importantly of all, productivity is up. Quiss put their reputation and experience on the line and came through with flying colours. I would certainly recommend anyone in our position that suspects their machines might not be up to the job, to give Matt at Quiss a ring and take up his offer to let you ‘try before you buy’”.