Pillars

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

 I am the Product Manager of a manufacturing company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We design and manufacture testing equipment used by marine radio surveyors worldwide to check shipboard GMDSS and AIS equipment as part of mandatory IMO radio surveys.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Pillars to accomplish?

• Improve the stability and security of the infrastructure behind our online services.
• Take over maintenance and day-to-day management of our cloud infrastructure.
• Set up reliable backups, recovery procedures and monitoring for our systems.

SOLUTION

How did you find Pillars?

Referral

Why did you select Pillars over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Pillars were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We brought Pillars in to review, improve and take over the ongoing operation of the production infrastructure behind our website and customer-facing online services. Access to our systems was set up and managed under security requirements we agreed on. Pillars started with an assessment of our existing setup to identify risks, areas for improvement, and priorities.
Before recommending changes, the team took time to understand how our business and services operate. The main deliverables were a review of our existing infrastructure with prioritised recommendations, monitoring and alerting across our servers and services, automated backups with a tested recovery procedure, and a set of security improvements covering access management and server hardening. 
Pillars now handles the ongoing operation of our production infrastructure, including support when production issues arise.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The clearest change is that we now learn about problems from monitoring rather than after the fact. For our own team, infrastructure also no longer competes with product work: we do not have to pull people away from their tasks when something needs attention on the servers. When an issue does come up, we get a quick response and know that someone is already taking care of it. That saves us time and avoids costs we used to absorb.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Everything we agreed on upfront was delivered on schedule, and we were kept informed along the way. Communication is direct with the engineers working on our systems, through a shared channel and regular calls, so questions get answered the same day. What we value most is that Pillars does not wait for us to flag an issue. If something needs attention or could be improved, they raise it with us first and come with a recommendation.

What was your primary form of communication with Pillars?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

These are strong engineers. They knew what to do, and when we asked why something was done a particular way, there was always a clear reason behind it. We are a manufacturer, not a software company, so having people who are genuinely good at infrastructure and can explain it in plain terms makes a real difference to us.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Pillars could have done differently?

Nothing significant. The start took a bit of time while they were getting familiar with the specifics of our setup, but that is expected when someone takes over infrastructure they did not build.