Case Study - Small Engineering Firm
How This Small Engineering Firm Focused on Projects Instead of IT Headaches
Industry: Engineering
Employees: 22
Location: Northeastern US
Solution: Fully managed IT services with cloud migration, proactive support, and secure collaboration tools
Results: 60% reduction in downtime, increased project delivery speed, and improved team morale
Results
Faster access to CAD files
No more internal IT distractions
Full backup and disaster recovery in place
The Challenge
When the managing partner at a small civil engineering firm found himself resetting passwords, troubleshooting VPN errors, and fielding printer complaints — he knew something had to change.
The team of 20 engineers was growing, taking on more municipal contracts and remote site work. But behind the scenes, their technology was becoming a bottleneck:
- Engineers couldn’t reliably access large CAD files when away from the office
- The network slowed to a crawl during peak hours
- Nobody really owned IT — support requests bounced between an overworked ops manager, a local freelancer, or “whoever could Google it”
- Critical files were stored on a single on-prem server with no verified backups
- Security was minimal: “We had antivirus and crossed our fingers,” one team member joked
Deadlines were getting tighter, and internal disruptions were becoming a serious risk to client satisfaction. The team was frustrated. The leadership was distracted. And the firm was outgrowing its patchwork IT setup.
The Solution
The firm partnered with a Managed IT provider that understood how engineering teams work — and what they needed to stay focused on projects, not problems.
The transition began with a full audit, identifying key choke points and vulnerabilities. From there, the new team:
- Migrated files to SharePoint with synced libraries, allowing fast access to CAD drawings from anywhere
- Implemented centralized support with a ticketing system and SLA-backed response times
- Hardened security with MFA, patch management, and monitored antivirus across all devices
- Consolidated communications with Microsoft 365 and Teams
- Set up automated backups and disaster recovery to ensure no project data would be lost
- Met quarterly with leadership to review performance and align IT with upcoming growth plans
One engineer remarked, “It’s the first time I haven’t had to think about our network all month. I just log in and work.”