Teddy’s Transportation System was one server crash away from catastrophe until Marathon and Guardian came to the rescue.
When you run a growing 24/7/365 global executive ground transportation service, you can’t leave your IT infrastructure to chance. Unfortunately, that’s the situation Charles Wisniewski found himself in two years ago.
Wisniewski, the president and CEO of Teddy’s Transportation System Inc. in Norwalk, Conn., took over the 80-year-old business from his father, who purchased it in 1978.
Teddy’s, which employs 15 full-time office staffers, is one of the top- rated transportation services in the Northeast. It operates a fleet of executive sedans, limousines, vans and coaches for executives and other professionals in the greater New York City area and Connecticut’s Gold Coast who need transportation to and from airports and events.
But until Wisniewski reached out to CMIT Solutions of Stamford and owner Linda Kuppersmith two years ago, Teddy’s was one server crash away from catastrophe.
‘Self-Taught Guy with a Screwdriver’
“Our IT department formerly consisted of one self-taught guy with a screwdriver,” Wisniewski said. The company had no IT plan, infrastructure or full-time support — and no assurance that a technology failure wouldn’t scuttle the business. “While costs were cheap,” he said, “you definitely got what you paid for.”
A business partner told Wisniewski about the nearby CMIT Solutions office, and after a meeting with Kuppersmith, he signed on. The CMIT Solutions of Stamford team got right to work, installing CMIT’s Marathon Ultra package for round-the-clock IT monitoring and management and Guardian Plus for remote backup and disaster recovery — giving Teddy’s a level of security and efficiency it had never known.
“We clearly built credibility from the start,” Kuppersmith said. “Right after signing on, Charles left on his honeymoon, leaving the entire IT operation to us.”
Wisniewski could rest easy because CMIT’s proactive and preventative managed service packages are specifically designed to prevent the kinds of IT problems that pose the worst threats to small businesses like Teddy’s.
Marathon ensures 24/7 proactive monitoring of clients’ computers and network, often heading off or resolving problems without the client knowing it until after the fact. We’ve heard dozens of stories about clients who arrived at work in the morning to discover that a potential business-threatening failure had been diagnosed and prevented or fixed overnight.
Guardian provides real-time, off-site data backups, protecting email, business and personnel records, client information and other critical data often lost in natural or other catastrophes.
Seventy percent of small businesses that suffer data loss have to close their doors permanently within a year. Guardian not only backs up the data but includes a disaster recovery plan to get clients up and running again.
Taking Away the Worry
It wasn’t as severe as a flood or fire, but in January, Kuppersmith and her crew faced a new challenge: efficiently transferring the company’s IT system to its new office a couple of miles away.
It was no problem. Kuppersmith’s team shut down all systems at 10 p.m. on a Friday and managed to get Teddy’s fully functioning in its new location by 3 a.m. Saturday.
“Amazing,” Wisniewski said. “We have a global 24/7 presence — it’s quite the operation. CMIT Solutions got the job done with only five hours of downtime and had us up and running again in time for our third shift.”
CMIT Solutions is discussing enhancements to keep Teddy’s ahead of the IT curve, including a comprehensive system analysis for technology upgrades and plans to replace and upgrade the primary server in the near future.
“Before CMIT Solutions came on board, Charles’ IT setup was all in his head, and it was becoming dangerous,” Kuppersmith said. “We took the worry away, allowing him to focus solely on growing his business.”
Since Teddy’s hired CMIT, Wisniewski said, the company’s IT operations have been “on autopilot.”
“Linda and her team are energetic, knowledgeable and provide outstanding customer service. They even answer the phone right away if we have a question, which never happens with other IT service providers,” he said. “Basically, they treat us like a big fish — it’s impressive!”
