Case Study / Zehr Insurance
Background
Zehr Insurance is a general insurance broker based in New Hamburg, Ontario, which is a town in Southern Ontario between Kitchener and Stratford. It’s a family business that has grown by both word of mouth and a strategy of acquiring other brokerages. While the head office has remained in New Hamburg, the expanded scheme of things involved multiple office locations that required a connection to head office.
Zehr Insurance wanted to move its IT operating system from a Microsoft NT server – including the network and an array of branch office modem communications systems – to an upgraded environment. A decision was made to upgrade to a Microsoft Windows 2003 Server that would run branch office communications and also new, centralized, email communications. The plan was to have all this work performed during off-core hours, evenings and weekends, so as to provide minimal disruption to the business.
Challenge
The conversion took place and what followed, in terms of technology, was a veritable nightmare. System downtime was so bad that it seemed the system was down more than it was up. Saying this had an impact on client service was an understatement. As a firm with multiple locations connected remotely to head office, Zehr Insurance had already spent a lot of time and money on its IT transition, but was having problems with not only the system crashing repeatedly, but also stability, availability, slow network performance, and poor security. There were severe problems with branch connectivity, which is catastrophic for an insurance broker. In this business, software can and does affect 90 per cent of everything you do. It’s not good when branches are losing data and agents can’t access customer data nor connect to head office. Zehr needed a fix, and fast.
Solution
President John Zehr went to Xylotek™ which promptly performed an analysis and drew up a situation report. The news wasn’t good. Zehr was told that it had hardware it didn’t need, was missing other hardware it did need, and also required fault tolerance in the hard drive so there would be no further disruption of service. And then, all the software had to be reconfigured. Xylotek™ said that chasing individual problems in logistical operations would be a band-aid solution. It recommended a complete overhaul.
Benefits
Zehr Insurance took the advice and is glad it did. Everything was cleaned up over the course of a busy weekend, and by Monday morning the problems with IT were pretty well over. Today, the firm has a stable, reliable and secure system in place at head office, and in the six branch locations. That means a full head office network, integrated services, an insurance broker management system, various Microsoft products included integrated Exchange, and branch offices seamlessly integrated with head office. In short, it’s an enterprise-class service, and a high-performance system that is fully secure.
Says John Zehr: “I have a staff of 35 employees, and they are free to work remotely or from home. For this they require seamless connectivity just as if they are at their desks. Now they can do that. Our various licenses are managed, the firewall and virus protection is all in place, and I can focus on running the business of a general insurance broker. I don’t have to worry about IT, and can thank Xylotek™ for being upfront, then doing what was necessary.”
Xylotek™ still handles ongoing maintenance for Zehr Insurance through a bi-weekly maintenance program. The servers are updated on a regular basis, and any calls for IT support go out as needed. Says Zehr’s Operations Manager Kim Smith: “In our business you must be able to access your computers because we don’t have paper files anymore. Technology means productivity and profit. We can’t do without it.”