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Headquartered in Richmond, VA, ColonialWebb Contractors is the largest
commercial mechanical and electrical contractor in Virginia and one of the
largest in the Mid-Atlantic, providing comprehensive, single-source
construction, service, manufacturing and refrigeration services. ColonialWebb
employs 1,400 skilled professionals across Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina
and South Carolina and dispatches more than 500 service vehicles throughout
the Mid-Atlantic every day to meet its clients’ needs.
The Challenge
Although founded in 1972 as two separate
Virginia companies - Colonial Mechanical and
Webb Technologies - ColonialWebb as it exists
today is a result of the January 2005 merger of the two firms and now boasts
nearly $200 million in annual sales. ColonialWebb’s merger made the newly
combined organization Virginia’s largest electrical and mechanical contractor.
While ColonialWebb’s growth and expansion helped drive the organization’s
mission of providing superior contracting services to its customers, the merger
of the two separate firms had resulted in a disjointed IT infrastructure.
When Dennis Harrell joined Colonial Webb’s small IT department as IT Manager
a year and half ago, he found that multiple technologies were being supported,
creating technology challenges due to multiple networks, multiple domains,
and no central management. Windows, Novell and Linux were all part of the
infrastructure, and while Linux was required to support third-party ERP
software, ColonialWebb wanted to simplify its infrastructure and eliminate one
of the redundant technologies. And with 1,400 employees, 7 remote offices,
and a 6-person IT department, Harrell knew he needed outside help.
The Solution
Harrell decided that the obvious choice for simplifying the infrastructure was to
eliminate Novell and keep Windows. “We didn’t have a lot of internal strength
to support Novell from file management and messenger standpoints,” says
Harrell. “Whenever we had any problems with Novell, we had to go outside for
help, and that became expensive.”
Harrell also knew that as ColonialWebb continued to expand, it would bring on
new resources, and from an end-user standpoint, workers tend to be more
familiar with Windows applications rather than Novell. In addition, “having the
right infrastructure in place as we start to explore newer technologies –
especially in terms of integrating third-party software and VoIP – would be
easier to do with Microsoft,” says Harrell.
But because of ColonialWebb’s limited IT resources and expertise, Harrell began
interviewing consultants for additional help with the migration. Early on in the
process, ColonialWebb interviewed one consulting company and asked them to
provide a price estimate and project plan. However, the price was so high that
Harrell temporarily tabled the migration. But when Harrell began to have
conversations with Nortec on other matters, he decided to ask Nortec to
present a proposal on the migration project.
Harrell’s reaction to Nortec’s migration proposal was quite different. “Nortec’s
price was so much lower that we double-checked to make sure it included
everything,” says Harrell. In fact, the proposal was indeed comprehensive and
cost-effective. “After reviewing it, we were very comfortable with the proposal
and pricing. Nortec’s proposal fit our budget and our objective,” says Harrell.
Once retained, Nortec met with ColonialWebb to put together a detailed
schedule to begin the migration and work in conjunction with the firm’s IT staff
and internal resources. Nortec’s project manager spent a few days learning
about ColonialWebb’s business, environment and people. In addition,
ColonialWebb developed an internal project team which included end users
and its internal IT group to work with Nortec. Eventually, this group would
serve as the pilot group when the migration was rolled out to end-users.
Nortec began the migration with a ‘prep phase’, wherein all data center servers
were prepared to support the migration. The next phase was a roll-out to each
of ColonialWebb’s 400 end-users. Harrell says that the migration has gone largely to plan, with no real surprises – other than how smoothly everything has
gone. He attributes this to Nortec’s initial preparation and project plan along
with the dedication and hard work from his internal IT staff: “Nortec’s project
manager spent a fair amount of time on the front-end prep work, getting our
infrastructure set up properly, and was very involved with our internal project
team,” says Harrell.
The Benefits
Eliminating redundant technologies and simplifying infrastructure, in addition
to migrating to technologies both ColonialWebb’s end-users and in-house IT
department could use and support easily were the firm’s goals with its migration
to Microsoft. “Even our president commented that we should have done
this a long time ago,” says Harrell.
And as ColonialWebb continues its mission to be ‘bigger, better, stronger, and
faster,’ the firm now has technologies to not only support that mission as it
grows. “As we bring new technologies on board that will integrate with Microsoft,
we’ll really start to see the benefits then,” says Harrell. The migration has
also brought technologies its users and technology team feel comfortable
utilizing. Says Harrell: “People now have the opportunity to use features and
functions not available before, and become more productive and efficient in
their workplace. I believe now that the migration is behind us, everyone is
pleased with the change and being in the Microsoft environment.”
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