Scale IT With The Growth Of Your Company
IT needs to be scaled to support the change in size a given company may undergo – but that’s easier said than done. Do you have the knowledge to make sure your technology keeps pace with the growth of your staff and organization? This is just one of the many ways in which Alltek has helped Citrus Connection.
Who Is Citrus Connection?
Citrus Connection is the public transit provider in Polk County, FL, serving over 2000 square miles in the region. They provide public transportation with their team of 188 employees, based out of four business locations – an administrative office, a call center, and two terminals, all of which have IT needs.
In providing around 2.4 million rides to Polk County residents every year, Citrus Connection is very active. What they do is vital in the region, given that 17.7% of the residents are below the poverty line, and unlikely to be able to afford private transportation. As the primary means of transportation for so many living in Polk County, Citrus Connection needs to operate effectively – which requires reliable IT services.
What Primary Technological Challenge Did Citrus Connection Face?
Before working with Alltek, Citrus Connection dealt with a number of IT-based challenges, many of which stemmed from the fact that their organization doubled in size in 2015. Prior to then, they were only servicing the Lakeland region, but once Polk Country outsourced their public transit to them, every aspect of their organization grew.
“Our IT needs effectively doubled overnight,” says Tom Phillips, Executive Director of Citrus Connection. “We were just not set up from a technology perspective to double our service, nor did we have the staff really necessary to manage services at multiple locations, and to really handle the amount of data that we needed. It was really a struggle that first year without Alltek.”
Why Did Citrus Connection Choose To Work With Alltek?
For a number of years, Citrus Connection attempted to handle their IT internally, spending more than a $100,000 to invest in new servers, and more on hiring and managing IT staff. And yet, they still encountered ongoing problems:
- Downtime
Consistent issues with their IT infrastructure had caused chronic downtime, which slowed down vital processes, including those involving payroll.
“We had a lot of problems in our IT department,” David Persaud, Chief Financial Officer, Citrus Connection. “Downtime was causing a lot of disturbance in accounting and payroll”. - Turnover
In the course of a few years, they had a three-person turnover in their IT department, which caused further issues with continuity and quality of management.
- Lack Of IT Leadership
One of the primary concerns was that those responsible for managing Citrus Connection’s IT were failing to come up with proper or cost-effective solutions.”We had spent approximately $100,000 on servers, which was supposed to be the solution to the downtime,” said Persaud. “But we were not getting any return on the investments, and then there was a request to add four more employees to the IT department.”
For all these reasons, Citrus Connection turned to Alltek for expertise and support. Our team helped them evaluate their IT department man
agement and processes, the ongoing costs of their IT problems, and the cause of their chronic downtime.
“After a complete evaluation of the IT systems and the IT department in consultation with Alltek, we thought it would be best to look at privatization to see how we can correct this problem,” said Persaud. “We have been fortunate. We have been able to solve these problems with significantly fewer resources, and keeping it at just two internal employees.”
What Has Been The Result For Citrus Connection?
In working with Alltek, Citrus Connection has been able to address the many IT issues they had struggled with for the years prior. They are able to effectively manage their multiple systems, including financial management and specialized bus intelligence software.
“We have turned around the IT department significantly,” says Persaud. “There is very limited downtime, and the computer systems are working.”