After the fire
In the late evening of December 11th, 2007 - an electrical fire broke out in the kitchen of our location at 1455 Harvey. The fire itself was mainly contained in that area, but the intense heat and smoke spread throughout our location, damaging all of our equipment with ash and an oily black smoke residue.
The next morning, we managed to retrieve our server and clean it out the best we could. It was setup at our owner's home (Jim Condon), along with 4 terminals so that our admin staff could operate. It started without a problem, although we lost about 30% of our data due to a drive error. Normally this would have been disasterous, but we had implemented our NCI Offsite Backup on our own data a year previously. We were able to recover 100% of our data by downloading it off the internet through a secure portal. Our email was also protected by our Message Management system, which did not bounce the email back, but rather held it (up to a week if necessary) until our email system was back on line.
Within 5 hours, we were up and running - our CISPro Service Dispatching program was back online and our technicians were out servicing their clients. Our phone# was forwarded to a cell phone and our admin staff worked out of Jim's home for the next week while we moved our operation into a 1300 sq ft facility in the same complex as our old store. Within 7 days we had our business back operating at full capacity.
Our sales staff all relocated themselves at their houses. They were able to function by using Citrix remote software to login to our server to retrieve email and work with our database systems. Our new Cisco Voice Over IP phone system arrived shortly after, allowing most of our management and sales personnel to continue to work out of their homes, yet providing the same level of service to our clients.
We realized after working in the small location (our previous location was 6500 sq ft!), that we did not need all the space we used to have. Our business, as well as technology, had changed during the past 10 years. We were doing more drop shipments to clients and carrying less inventory as a result. Our technicians were using more remote sessions and onsite visits instead of working on the computers in the shop. Email and the internet had altered the way we communicated with our clients - we could provide more detailed information and feedback - and combined with phone calls or onsite visits meant that our retail demonstration systems were no longer needed.
We hunted around and found an ideal location - our new 3400 sq ft facility on Banks Road, which opened July 28th, 2008. Most of our sales staff have decided to work remotely and most of our technicians also work remotely, using new Touch cell phones to keep in contact with their clients and the service dispatch desk through email and voice.
From this experience we've gained perspective on what is important to our business:
1. Dedicated and loyal staff
Able to operate under stressful conditions and maintain our level of service and support with our clients.
2. Long Term relationships with our clients
Our clients were patient and worked with us to get through the initial problems that arose with product deliveries.
3. Quality of Data Equipment
We rely on IBM servers and CISCO switches to maintain our data - with their low failure rate and excellent support.
4. Backups
Our Backups are done daily - onsite to 3 separate local machines (critical data only) and offsite daily and weekly.
5. Online Databases able to operate remotely
Our email is able to be accessed remotely anywhere and our database can be accessed through secure connections from most locations.
6. Relationships with our partners
We were allowed special terms with our bank (Royal Bank) and many of our vendors to help us through this time, as well as immediate support from our local parters like D&E Communications, who helped us get up and running as quickly as possible.