Customer Story: Kirkwood Distributors

“Before we knew OmniSys we had been running our main business accounting application for many years on a Novell server based network. We soon began to see limitations as more and more businesses at the time were moving to Microsoft Server based networks. OmniSys were introduced to us as a team who could help plan and implement the migration for us to a new Microsoft Server base for our whole business. Our business is very customer hands on orientated, with us having a long term customer base nation-wide, and the handling of such a migration needed to be as smooth as possible to negate any impact to our clients. We liked that OmniSys displayed to us the same values of care and hands on approach to us as a customer, as we did to ours. From the outset of the project, they took ownership of every aspect of the project, from sourcing the correct hardware for server room, to making sure users at their desks had all concerns and issues dealt with as quickly as possible when they arose. Explanation and familiarisation was all delivered in understandable language which further went to ease users change experience.

Once all was complete we immediately saw improvements in system speed and performance and ultimately all IT advice and direction from that time was covered by OmniSys.  The OmniSys Support Plan monthly system was also a breath of fresh air in a time when other IT Support companies wanted paying a year in advance for service they had not even delivered yet! As time passed from months into years, (and now beyond our first decade), OmniSys became more imbedded in Kirkwood. They helped us introduce digital imaging of all our stock for cataloguing on a 6 monthly basis, culminating in recommending our current digital stock photographer and assisting in us setting up our first internal website.

OmniSys also were able to facilitate our on the road sales team access vital systems, data and emails when nationwide and on multiple trips every year to the far east. OmniSys then in 2005 introduced us to our first Microsoft Terminal Server. This was a huge performance jump for our system. We asked OmniSys to make our main business accounts application as fast as possible, and they suggested Terminal Server as the best way to do so. They said they could not quantify exactly how much until they had our data running on the new server. We had a very simple test. Our month end routine took up to 4 hours to run each month and I used to have to come to the office early on the morning to kick it off. OmniSys arrived on a Thursday evening with our new servers, returned on a Friday morning and told us we would be up and running on the new Terminal Server system after we came back from lunch break. At close of business on the Friday all seemed fine and I returned on the following morning early to test the month end. It ran in about 5 mins! From then on, each recommendation OmniSys have made has been for good reason and has helped us improve our operational process. We have upgraded servers again since then, moved our email in 2012 to Office365 which has meant we have never been without email, even when we suffered various power cuts, storm damage and other normal environmental disruptions. By being able to “test the water” of the Cloud with OmniSys and Microsoft Office 365, and seeing in real world terms the benefits of this new way of working, we certainly have a more favourable view of other Cloud service offerings when the need shall arise in the future. We are glad OmniSys are part of our team.”