How Piedmont Rural Telephone Cooperative (PRTC) cut IT costs by over 50% and improved support by partnering with Corsica Technologies for managed services and infrastructure upgrades.
Client
Piedmont Rural Telephone Cooperative
Challenge
Rising IT costs and limited IT staffing resources
Solution
Comprehensive managed services for IT and cybersecurity
Results
IT costs cut by 50% and able to refocus on their core business
About PRTC
Piedmont Rural Telephone Cooperative was formed in Laurens County South Carolina in 1950 and began serving approximately 110 customers in the town of Gray Court in 1951. Like all other rural telephone companies at the time the cooperative was established under the auspices of the 1936 Rural Electrification Act which its primary mission was to bring both electricity and phone service to under-served rural areas of the United States.
Fast forward to the present. Piedmont Rural Telephone Cooperative or PRTC now serves Laurens County businesses and homes with special emphasis on high-speed internet access and fiber optic technology. Still considered a small business with 40 employees, PRTC continues to serve rural communities. Keeping current with ever-changing IT technologies, methods, and procedures to run and support our business brought significant challenges.
The Challenge:
When Rural Roots Meet Modern IT Hurdles
Keeping and attracting IT personnel with up-to-date skill sets had been an issue for PRTC, largely due to their rural location away from tier 1 cities and major college campuses. Being a small sized business, PRTC lacked the ability to efficiently scale up their IT resources. As they attempted to recruit and staff up their IT resources to meet business demand, costs continued to rise. Partially due to an effort to find and retain top talent, PRTC’s inhouse IT expenses peaked at $650k per year. The strategy had to change, so they looked outward. PRTC began an RFI process to find a Managed Services Provider they could partner with to meet their IT goals and objectives.
Goals and Objectives:
Laying the Groundwork for a Smarter Network
The primary goal for PRTC was to focus internal IT resources on our core telecommunications business and their customers. To do that, they needed to:
- Reduce operating costs as it expenses continued to accelerate impacting margins.
- Implement a reliable backup and disaster recovery infrastructure for business data and hardware.
- Boost it network up time, support, and response time.
“We are very happy with our decision to pursue the MSP path and feel fortunate to have Corsica as our IT partner. They are a company with scale that maintains a local feel and presence.”
— Randy Lis | General Manager | PRTC
The Process:
Scouting the Right Signal: Finding the Perfect IT Partner
After a thorough RFI and RFP process, PRTC compared a number of local managed services providers side-by-side. PRTC worked with Sales Director, Scott Shearouse, and experienced engineers to complete a one time assessment of IT infrastructure and processes called a Technical Services Review. This allowed the company to gain a better understanding of what would be needed prior to partnering long term. An executive report was provided with a detailed plan of action for optimizing IT infrastructure and efficiency according to PRTC’s goals and budget.
The Solution:
Plugged into Progress: The Corsica Game Plan
By offloading IT management, Disaster Recovery, Support to Corsica, PRTC’s internal IT resources could focus on their core business. The Corsica Technologies solution included:
- An unmetered managed IT services plan for 70+ workstations with remote it support
- Access to on-site it support
- A BDR device for full system recovery (Windows & Linux)
- Moved Office 365 to the cloud
- Reduced server load by 17 servers, leveraging virtualization technology
- Firewall, anti-malware, anti-virus
Results:
A Clear Connection: Cost Savings and Scalable Support
The upgraded server infrastructure allowed PRTC to dramatically reduce the number of devices, licenses, and maintenance agreements. The Corsica Technologies NOC and help desk solved their network uptime, support, and maintenance issues.
The PRTC partnership with Corsica also included access to their highly skilled team of experts. This has been a benefit and bonus for the PRTC team and their business as attracting and retaining technical skill sets was a challenge they faced in the past.
The annual IT expenses prior to implementing the MSP strategy peaked at over $650k per year. PRTC is anticipating an expense run rate reduction of over 50% in savings after partnering with Corsica.
Randy Lis, General Manager, at PRTC says it best: “We are very happy with our decision to pursue the MSP path and feel fortunate to have Corsica at our IT partner. They are a company with scale that maintains a local feel and presence.”
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