Custom Carpet increases efficiency by transforming their antiquated network to an industry grade system.

As a staple point in the Illinois area for professional carpet cleaning, Custom Carpet has taken a single man shop into a full fleet of trained professionals and created an agency that sets itself apart for industry counterparts. Custom Carpet had a small network to fill their technology needs but it was slowly being be pushed to its limits by the growth of the agency. Internally there was lack of integration between applications, antiquated remote dial in technology, and no email system to see employee appointments. Using Small Business Server, Intercell Group deployed an architecture designed around Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange and PPTP for VPN access and transformed a decentralized network to an industry grade system with the building blocks for future growth in place.

Business Challenge

Custom Carpet’s main challenge was security, email and remote access. In initial meetings lack of passwords internally, no centralized network resources, and limited dial in access handcuffed the organization to manual processes and excessive hours. There currently was no way for employees to share files, see if peers were in meetings, or do work from home in an efficient manner. Technology had become the bottleneck of the organization and Custom Carpet was determined to find a solution.

Solution

Without extensive in-house technical support required to tackle its IT issues, Custom Carpet looked to its technology partner iNTERCELL GROUP Small Business Specialist (SBSC), to recommend an adequate solution.

To address the lack of centralized recourses and password security Intercell suggested implementing Microsoft Small Business Server which includes Microsoft Exchange Server.

Their current solution lacked the technology building blocks for growth and by deploying Active Directory with Exchange a central repository of information and security could be established. Once the architecture and deployments were executed Custom Carpet was left with an industry grade system that could handle all their needs. Employees were now able to log onto a domain only seeing network resources available to them but also having the ability to collaborate on documents increased efficiency. VPN access was established for home users so that work could be done from anywhere with all the network resources available. The addition of Microsoft Exchange gave employees instantaneous access to each other calendars and allowed meetings to book on the fly without having to physically confirm with peers.

Summary

With Custom Carpet growing with each passing quarter, technology has no longer become the organization bottleneck. The architecture designed behind the system allows for future growth and an ability to use to technology to effectively support their business instead of hinder.