Cloud computing: Cost was the deal maker

For CQMS using cloud computing wasn’t the best option, it was the only option

The CQMS Group is in the enviable position of being able to grow as fast as it can scale up its business. Supplying shovels and buckets to Australia’s fastest-growing industry, CQMS is the amalgamation of six mining supply companies with offices spread across the nation.

“We need an information technology system that lets us get critical data quickly and reliably all over the country,” CQMS’s James Mulvaney says. “We always knew we’d have to consolidate all our technology in one place. It came down to a cost comparison: purchasing our own equipment, or buying infrastructure.”

It was cost that sealed the deal. Mulvaney says by hosting company data and software on a cloud provided by Brennan IT, CQMS was able to implement a secure solution and flexible computing infrastructure at one-third of the set-up cost and much lower operating costs than purchasing and running its own infrastructure.

“Using infrastructure as a service, we’re able to implement new projects or set up new offices very quickly and do far less planning around future requirements, because we only pay for what we need,” Mulvaney says. “The bigger we get the more we end up saving, the actual capacity or size of infrastructure we are now running is twice what we’d initially planned because it’s so easy to use.”

Moreover, the cloud structure enables staff to gain access to company data from remote offices, mine sites, customer premises or homes, enabling the mine supplier to provide more flexible working conditions for staff and better customer service.

“My job,” Mulvaney says, “has changed from constantly fixing problems to focusing on the process of design and strategy to make sure our IT systems fit the business.”

How success was hired

It was a similar story for Richard Fox-Smith information technology manager for national equipment company Kennards Hire . When he came into the role he had one had a simple goal: get IT out of the way so the company could realise the benefits of five years of dramatic growth. Having doubled in size in that period, Kennards had 108 branches, each running its own server and computer equipment, five specialist equipment divisions and a very expensive point of sales IT system that had been developed years before.

Hamstrung by an system that needed constant maintenance just to ensure it continued to run, the IT department was unable to support the business growth and morale was pretty low.

“The whole idea was to implement a program of renewal which would consolidate all these different pieces of software and take away work we didn’t need to be doing,” Fox-Smith says. “We wanted to centralise all our hardware and move it into a safe environment. It wasn’t that we wanted to move into the cloud, it was just that it fitted exactly into what we needed to achieve as a company.”

Kennards opted to create a “private cloud”, replacing its dispersed servers with a single set of virtualised servers run by Harbour MSP. Although Kennards still owns its computer hardware, Harbour provides secure facilities, around-the-clock management and regular back-up.

“It’s hard to do an overall cost comparison because we have a far more secure, stable system,” Fox-Smith says. “We still own our own servers and storage but Harbour gives us a strong, secure foundation and manages all the processes that used to take up our time.

“The feedback from the rest of the company is that information technology is now helping us move forward, rather than holding us back.”

BRW

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