The Background
PAC Outsourcing is a professional campaign law compliance services firm based in Alexandria, VA. The firm offers political fund management and election law counseling to the political action committees of corporations, trade and professional associations and labor organizations.
The Challenge
PAC Outsourcing had done some outsourcing of its own, having contracted with an IT services firm for technical support. PAC Outsourcing’s email system desperately needed to be updated. The system was very antiquated –using an iMap and POP protocol – preventing users from syncing between devices or sharing contacts and calendars. Karen Linebarger, COO, was also concerned about security. “We have lot of very sensitive data, and security is very important to us,” Linebarger says.
Unfortunately, the vendor was not meeting expectations, and it was becoming increasingly clear to Camille Jones, Compliance Director, that a change was needed.
The Solution
Jones knew that Microsoft Office 365 had all the capabilities the firm needed, but did not trust her current vendor to take her firm where it needed to go. So Jones and Linebarger selected Nortec for the cloud migration and to address their security concerns. “We wanted to access files from anywhere securely, have a better archiving system and firewall – and we wanted to get all of these things taken care of with Nortec,” says Jones.
Nortec set up several pre-calls as well as a transition plan so that Jones and Linebarger would be comfortable with the process. “We had to migrate many, many gigabytes of data to the cloud,” Jones says. “Throughout the whole process, we knew what to expect, what day it would start, what day other things would happen. It all went according to plan.”
After the migration, Nortec returned to fine-tune and configure some last remaining items. “The transition was great, Nortec was fantastic and any issues we had were resolved within hours,” says Linebarger.
The Benefits
PAC Outsourcing is now utilizing MS Office 365 for email as well as Skype for Business and is currently reviewing policies in order to use OneDrive and SharePoint in terms of moving files to the cloud. Nortec also configured desktop management tool Microsoft InTune so that all of the firm’s anti-virus and software updates are being managed comprehensively. “We now have a robust firewall, VPN access, and a backup routine. All set up by Nortec – all correctly,” says Jones.
The firm has also been able to achieve some cost savings as a result of the switch to MS Office 365. “Now that we’re using Skype for business, we don’t need to use WebEx anymore. Skype has all the capabilities we need,” says Jones.
Beyond cost savings, the firm has been enjoying new efficiencies. “The response time from Nortec has been great,” says Jones. “I’m no longer a middleman to getting a problem fixed, so it frees me up to do other things.”