Case Study
As part of their five-year strategic business plan, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK decided to incorporate technology to grow their business. One part of their plan was to implement a new centralized Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to help them grow the number of franchises and improve franchises’ productivity. Unlike some in-house ERP systems, the new system had to be available 24X7 to serve their 200 franchises in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland. When they looked internally at their onsite data center management and technology resources, they realized that they could not reliably meet the 7X24X365 uptime and service requirements to support all of their franchises.
TWO MEN AND A TRUCK required managed data center services that provided enterprise-level power delivery and back-up, Internet connectivity, off-site IT disaster recovery, and on-site staff to support their server infrastructure. The managed data center had to deliver more than basic colocation; it had to have processes and procedures to ensure data security and meet requirements of TWO MEN AND A TRUCK’s global structure. Beyond the technical requirements, the leadership looked for a managed data center company to partner with whom they could build a long-term trusting relationship.
“We are not in the data center management business. It made much more sense for us to find a strategic partner to help manage our IT infrastructure and data center services,” says Barb Dawson, Vice President of Information Technology at TWO MEN AND A TRUCK.
After a very comprehensive and lengthy RFP interview process, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK selected OTAVA as their managed data center partner. Their decision was based on OTAVA’s technical knowledge, business structure, customer technical support as well as a good cultural fit. “Ultimately, OTAVA proved to be very flexible in their solution offerings unlike other data centers. Secondly OTAVA demonstrated that they understood the small and medium-sized business,” says Dawson.
By selecting OTAVA’s managed colocation services, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK was able to upgrade to a managed data center with a fully redundant power and network infrastructure. They chose OTAVA’s high availability power and network solutions with no single point of failure in the power or network delivery – assuring a very high level of server uptime.
“When a company outsources something critical to a business like data, it has to be done right. If it is not done right, it could ruin our business,” said Greg Young, IT Project and Operations Manager for TWO MEN AND A TRUCK. “OTAVA demonstrated it can get it done right – from the quality of their managed data centers to the professionalism of their staff. They have a good understanding of our type of company and our IT services and support functions. Their technical staff was very responsive with answers to our questions. Quite frankly, OTAVA has met and exceeded all of our expectations.”
TWO MEN AND A TRUCK® is the largest franchised moving company in the U.S. with more than 200 locations. The company started in the early 1980s in Okemos, Mich., as a way for two brothers in high school to earn extra money. It now has franchises worldwide and more than 1,200 trucks on the road. In addition to moving services, franchises offer packing services and sell boxes and packing supplies.
