SADA, An Insight Company

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the manager of a project and construction coordination office within a large municipal transportation authority. We coordinate projects before and during construction to protect city assets and maintain access for the traveling public.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SADA?

Our city has a very high volume of construction cranes, and recently passed a near-billion-dollar levy to improve our transportation systems, to include 5G installation through telecommunications companies. We needed to preserve right of way while making infrastructure upgrades.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They took their product, called dotMaps, and customized it for our use. That included development work on the existing product, with refinements to match our goals. The product reduces conflicts—and speeds up resolutions—for all the activities that happen in the right of way.

What is the team composition?

We had an account manager, with about five or six people working on their team, possibly more.

How did you come to work with SADA?

We held an open and competitive RFP process. We chose them for their price and capabilities.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent something near $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in February 2017. As of December 2017, the project is almost done, but we will continue our relationship with them to make future improvements.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’ve saved almost $1,000,000 since we started using the system. Previously, we managed everything by hand, but dotMaps has increased the pace and savings for all parties involved. We’ve shaved time off of construction projects, which has been really beneficial. We’ll continue tracking these metrics as we continue to use the tool.

How did SADA perform from a project management standpoint?

The visited us a couple of times, and we had a lot of Skype and phone conversations. They use a much more agile development technique, while most of our city’s systems are still built for a waterfall approach. This created some challenges, but SADA was very flexible and helped us through any difficulties.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve never done anything like this before, but they were a delight to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing that I can think of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Solid understanding of your project before you start is critical, as is clear communication during the process.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Senior Vice President and CTO for Hunterdon Healthcare, a medical network based in New Jersey. We have roughly 2,800 hundred employees and 600 affiliated physicians.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SADA Systems?

We had challenges with Microsoft licensing that resulted in large financial penalties, and we relied on an outdated email system. We’ve hired SADA to help transition us to G Suite to streamline our organization and cut Microsoft-related costs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They understood that shifting a large organization away from Microsoft in one fell swoop was unrealistic and counterproductive. Instead, we decided to take a long-term approach, letting staffers adapt to Google’s products organically.

We started by doing a mass conversion to Gmail and Google Calendar. They spent six months helping our staff, answering any questions about how the new setup differed from the previous. From here, we began a detailed effort across specific departments. They interviewed staff about their challenges and are introducing them to G Suite products that provide adequate solutions.

What is the team composition?

I work directly with a project manager who visits our offices monthly to coach our departments. Behind him, they have a series of technical resources we can tap. We also purchased help desk services through SADA, which has representatives available by phone 24/7 for any Google-related questions.

How did you come to work with SADA Systems?

We considered them several years ago when I worked with a different facility. During those interviews, I was impressed by their level of engagement, patience. They seemed to understand the challenges of a large transition, so when Hunterdon decided to switch to G Suite, SADA was the only company I contacted.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend approximately $325,000 for licensing and professional services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in June 2016 and our relationship is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

In order to measure overall comfort with the transition, we monitor how many staffers move their personal drives onto Google. This has increased on a month-by-month basis. Departments undergoing training sessions are using G Suite with greater frequency. It’s a slow process, but it’s giving our employees a deeper understanding of the products.

As staffers become comfortable with G Suite, we’re able to eliminate Microsoft products. This will help reduce our cost of ownership by half over five years.

How did SADA Systems perform from a project management standpoint?

We're definitely happy with their availability. Their business network has also allowed SADA to connect us directly with Google to discuss opportunities, which is extraordinary. They introduced us to the Google Analytics framework, their AI, and helped organize a roadmap for the future of our organization.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very knowledgeable in their field. They’ve also demonstrated commitment to our organization, and they’re as invested in our success as we are. These are extremely positive traits.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There are a couple of opportunities for growth. It took longer to transition our backend to Gmail and Google Calendar than I anticipated. It would be helpful if they had greater conversion expertise and could more accurately anticipate timing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What were your main reasons or objectives for undertaking the project with SADA Systems?

We engaged with Google directly. I think we were just under the threshold they wanted to use a reseller. So, Google actually brought them to us.

What was your email or collaboration system previously?

We were using GroupWise on premise.

What was the main reason for switching to Google Apps?

The primary reason was cost. GroupWise was not a viable solution going forward, so we had to do something different. We did a lengthy pilot between Microsoft BPOS and Google Apps.

SOLUTION

Was Google Apps more cost-effective for what it provided?

It was. Actually, we had selected Microsoft before getting into the terms and conditions of the contract. What they were delivering wasn’t what we had agreed upon at first, so we backed out and selected Google Apps.

What stages of the project was SADA Systems involved in?

They were brought in during the sales cycle, they were involved in the rollout and conversion. We had to move everything from our on-premise system, GroupWise, and then store the information locally. We had to unarchive, then convert and transition everything back to the server, and then upload. There was actually a lot of information that had to be transferred into the current email format.

How long ago was the project completed?

It was several years ago.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How satisfied were you with the work that SADA Systems delivered?

We are pretty satisfied. All things considered, it’s not the most challenging project. You shouldn’t underestimate the impact of change. Any kind of change can be disruptive.

How satisfied are you with Google Apps as a platform?

We are very satisfied.

Do you feel that you made the right choice over Office 365 or Exchange?

Yes.

When working with SADA Systems, is there anything that you found unique or special about them?

They were pretty good at trying to resolve any issues, and we had many problems with GroupWise. At that point, Google had a few issues with their services and compatibility so we worked with SADA and Google’s engineers. They were able to apply patches or fix it as necessary. SADA implemented Google Apps smoothly. I’d say they’re responsive, and have a good amount of knowledge of Google Apps.

Looking back on the project, is there anything you would do differently a second time around or think that SADA Systems could improve upon?

I probably wouldn’t have dragged out the pilot as long as we did if I could change. I think we were in that stage for six months to a year. We knew what we wanted from the beginning. We looked at bringing in solutions in-house as well. Ultimately, we went with the cloud. When we made the procurement decision, we didn’t look at 365. We looked at BPOS, some of the features weren’t there as far as the integration into their archival space with separate systems. We’re still very happy with our Google choice.

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief description of what your company does?

Our company does IT test and measurement. Effectively, we ensure that companies that are putting up services, and we validate those services. So, we create both physical and virtual assets that go and interrogate platforms and perform performance testing. That’s our core.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your main goal or objective for undertaking the project with SADA Systems?

The main goal was – we looked at NIT, we were looking at things that were considered commodity. Anything that we would consider a commodity were things we weren’t willing to put intellectual capital into. So, email is one of those typical things. We engaged SADA to really, not just for email, but to bring in a unified communication solution that was cloud based that we didn’t have to manage and do all the care and feeding, yet receive the dividends, which are things like release cycles. So, if I would have deployed this internally, an entire UC solution, I almost guarantee that it would become fairly stale until I had an entire team managing it, reviewing the needs of our business, and then implementing futures, etc. Not to mention just keeping it up and running. We got to bypass all of that by leveraging SADA Systems to bring us into the cloud environment that can deliver all of this for us.

SOLUTION

What was the main reason for choosing Office 365 over Google Apps or any other solutions?

We looked at a few. Our company has a series of different solutions because we grew primarily through acquisition. So, as an IT department, we were now inheriting all these different platforms. One of the mandates I had was to rationalize and simplify our portfolio. First, I went to some of the big providers that we already had for UC solutions – I mean, the model, Cisco, Avaya and some others. We glanced over Microsoft because they had a new offering at the time, and it wasn’t really mature enough for us to consider it seriously. So, we were looking at other options. We actually started going down the path of another solution. We just didn’t find enough control, and features that we were looking for in the market. As we were doing so, Microsoft released Office 365, which seemed to have 95 percent of what we were looking for. Now, we’re a Microsoft shop, so that also helps. In terms of rationalizing our portfolio, that was one of the considerations. We also had an Enterprise agreement, which made it certainly cost effective to go to O-365, not to mention some of the programs that Microsoft launched to help us get into that platform. So, we didn’t do a lot of testing, but we did a lot of research before we landed on that. So far, it’s been a very good solution. The only thing that’s really missing at the time was an Enterprise Voice solution. It looks like they’re starting to bridge that gap as well.

What were you using before Office 365?

We were looking like a lot of IT departments. The apps we had were just working to fill the gaps that we had. So we didn’t have an IM solution. We didn’t have an Enterprise Voice solution. Desktop sharing was through WebEx. We had different voice platforms, Short code, Avaya, Cisco, CMU all over the globe. There wasn’t a lot of trunking in between. We were carrying a lot of expenses. So, we really didn’t have anything. There was a complete gap in our portfolio.

What parts of the project was SADA Systems involved in?

SADA Systems came in, and they did a few things. One, they assessed our environment and they did a quick readiness assessment. Because, going back to that earlier statement, we were the product of a lot of acquisition and we had a lot of technical debt. When you’re going through, if you have a small core team, and you’re on an acquisition spree, you already got a technical debt. That only grows, it becomes more cumbersome, and it becomes a greater operational burden. So, we had all sorts of platforms. We had Office 2003, we had Office 2007, we had Office 2010, all co-existing. We had Exchange 2003, Exchange 2007. We had SharePoint 2003, SharePoint 2010. So, we had this collage of a growing mess that we were never really able to focus on. So, we brought SADA Systems in to take a look at our existing environment, and then find the best way to port everything into O-365. The scope of the project was making sure active directory was sound enough to move. Taking all the 2003 folks, and moving them over. Upgrading again for the 2007 folks, and moving them over. Then, again, we migrated  the 2010 platform, and then upgrading all the clients as well. They’re giving us the tools to upgrade the clients so that everybody could be on Office 2010. They did that whole project for our entire company. We started with a beta, and then we released it to our entire company, so our entire company is on O-365.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How happy are you with the work SADA Systems delivered?

We’ve been very happy. We made them our partner of record. We deployed it [office 365], but the thing I really appreciated about SADA Systems was when we deployed this, it was fairly new at the time from Microsoft, which meant there was a lot of nuances that hadn’t yet been discovered. SADA Systems was really plugged in to Microsoft, which I really enjoyed. When bugs were found, and there were a series of bugs, this is Exchange 2003 we’re dealing with, trying to port that over to O-365, we were one of the first customers to go to O-365. We were discovering a lot of things, and SADA Systems was diligent at working with Microsoft, number one. Number two, the efficiency of the program was such that in under two months, we had the entire company moved. So, they were able to work with us aggressively. There were very few errors outside of documented bugs. That’s kind of our experience with SADA Systems in any project we’ve engaged in. So, yes, I would say we’re extremely satisfied with their work.

How satisfied are you with Office 365 as a platform so far?

Office 365 is a – if it’s only platform – I’ve got a love-hate relationship with it. The hate part really comes from the fact that there’s a little bit of black box that happens now. There’s almost death by paper cut in terms of performance because some of our constituents can be on different servers and different data centers, now we get these sweeping statements like, “Hey, my email seems to be slow.” Well, I don’t control the access anymore. I have very little visibility. So, the metrics come in to Microsoft. Our point isn’t as  granular as I’d like to see. The products itself, I think is very strong. What I really enjoy is the software release cycle. All of a sudden, something like a linked recording manager would be turned on. We’ll get the credit. We’ll get the accolade associated with us, yet this is something we didn’t deploy. So we’re very good at telegraphing what features they’re turning on next. You have a little bit of control as multitenant, still. So, I think they’re doing a lot of things right. I’m a little bit disappointed we haven’t seen the integration of Skype, although I believe it’s coming up now. So, Enterprise Voice has been lagging for us. The only solution was to do a hybrid, and we do know we don’t want to go down that path. But overall, I think the performance was acceptable. The features are acceptable. I think it’s a pretty solid platform.

So you feel you made the right decision?

I feel I made the right decision especially in seeing what’s coming out. The integration of SkyDrive and the retooling of SharePoint, I think that brings a different experience that just shows that Microsoft is – you can criticize them all you want -  really getting it with this platform.

When working with SADA Systems, did you find anything to be unique or special compared to other IT consultants that you’ve worked with?

I think there’s one thing that’s very unique about SADA Systems. I’m going to break away a little bit from Microsoft and O-365 on this. There is a number of consultants out there that are big box consultants that I have worked with that – I’ll give you an example. I was trying to move my data center completely into the cloud. Through this traditional big box, vendors will come in and say, “I can easily move that to the cloud. Let me take that physical asset, I’ll virtualize it, I’ll STP it, or I’ll physically ship it over to your private cloud, and we’ll unpackage it and voila!” Okay, that’s great and that works. SADA Systems takes a very different approach. SADA Systems was saying to us, “We want to make sure – we understand the cloud. We want to make sure that when we move your assets that your assets are able to function.” The portability of the asset is one thing, but understanding what the impact is going to be for your business is where SADA Systems really starts to shine. So, maybe it’s part of their culture, maybe it’s part of the kernel of how they grew as a company. But, I find they’re a little more in tune with the consequence of some of these actions, the consequence of moving to the cloud. They’re a little more realistic about what you’re going to give up when you go to one of these cloud solutions. I find that grows a great deal of trust. So, I’ve been very satisfied with them, their vision, and their execution.

Looking back on the project, is there anything you’d do differently a second time around or think that they can improve upon?

What I would do differently is I’d be a little more cautious when going to solutions that aren’t quite big, especially for core solutions. Moving messaging when we did was a little risky. But it’s a risk I felt I had to take. So, in terms of the project, I think I would treat it a little differently in that I’d want to do a little more testing before we dive in. But, in terms of SADA Systems, I think SADA Systems did as good a job as they could have. As a company, the only place I would really criticize at all is – and this is very minor and very specific. I don’t even know if it was worth mentioning, but the little things like – I was expecting a little more from the Enterprise websites from them. It seems they’re doing a little bit more testing now, but it’s a gap in the portfolio of Microsoft. And that seems to be the same in telephony - seems to be a bit of a gap in their portfolio. So, I hope they shore that up as they get into cloud Enterprise Voice. But aside from that, no major complaints.

BACKGROUND

Can you provide a brief overview on what your company does?

We are a national chain of 127 restaurants in 15 states. Been in business 35-plus years. We started in Southern California, in San Diego in particular and have grown from there. We are heavy  in California, across the Sun Belt, and in Florida.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your main goal or objective going into the project with SADA Systems?

We are not traditionally a Microsoft shop. We were running a Linux operating system, and we are running a product called Cario, which is an exchange, if you will, emulator for email. We have just kind of grown out of it and were continuing to have problems with it. So, I started looking in the marketplace for a replacement. One of my criteria was that I wanted, well I didn’t want to be in the “email business” anymore as far as keeping servers up and running. So, I was looking for hosted solutions and, as part of that, having been familiar with Google on a personal level, it seems to make sense to look at them from a corporate perspective. After looking at several other providers in the space, I determined that Google is not only the best fit for the company, but the cost was very competitive, and the functionality was quite large for the dollars that we were spending. So, all in all, it looked like a really good fit for us, and it certainly has turned out that way.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of the project?

So, the scope of our project was migrating all of our email, historical email data, from our Cario system into Google Apps for business. We had about, I would say, 450 or 500 mailboxes that needed to be moved. SADA Systems took that on for us, obviously in collaboration with my team, but I think we signed the contract at the very end of December of 2011. I’ve really have to go back and check my notes, but we were fully deployed by the middle of March.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How happy are you with the work that SADA Systems delivered?

I was blown away, quite honestly. I’ve been in this business a long time, technology that is, 16 to 18-plus years. Well, 27 years in technology, but in the last 16 or 18 years being responsible for departments of application and/or infrastructure, and implement a lot of software in those years. This was certainly one of the top five projects I’ve ever been involved with a third party, probably the top two or three, and they just really knew what they were doing.

From the start, they had an excellent plan. The project management team was outstanding. They just took us – I wouldn’t say cookie cutter, but they had a plan from start to finish even though our email system was really not something that they were very familiar with, by their own admission, and that there were certainly some challenges because of its uniqueness, if you will. But, they’ve worked with us through the entire process. One of the biggest things that they brought to the table, which I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to invest in upfront or not, was the change management piece, by that, I mean it wasn’t much of an investment. It was a couple thousand dollars, but all the templates of the communication that we needed to send to all the email users, so that included our field folks. In a distributor environment, it’s kind of tough to get everybody on board as to what’s happening when, and what they need to do as part of that transition. Like I said, SADA Systems had templates for pretty much all of that stuff which made it really easy.

How satisfied are you and the employees with the changeover to Google Apps?

It’s been phenomenal. It’s been beyond my expectations. Not just – the email, and again, while my initial hope was we needed to swap out our email system, the collaboration pieces of Google Apps with the documents, Google Docs in particular, has far exceeded my expectations, as far as how people have adopted it, and are using it. It’s in the vernacular of our speak, you know, instead of “I’ll send you something,” it’s “I’ll share it with you – a document with you” because that’s – I don’t know if you’re familiar with Google, but the paradigm of multiple people being in a document at one time has really been revolutionary, quite honestly, to the way we do business. So it’s, again, exceeded our expectations.

Looking just back on the project, is there anything that you would do differently a second time around or think that SADA Systems could improve upon?

You know, like I said, I was truly impressed from start to finish. You know, I think, we all could have been a little more due diligence about the Cario, and what needed to happen with that. Because there were some challenges we had with calendars and some other things that again, if you were coming from an exchange app, probably wouldn’t have happened. So, I think a little more research upfront of some of those items. They were all hurdles that we got over, so it didn’t affect the timeline of the project, but certainly caused some consternation as we try to work through those. But, like I said, the SADA Systems team really just made it happen.