$1,870,000 Saved: A Case Study for Infrastructure optimization.

Right before I decided to go into business for myself, I worked on a massive project for an organization that yielded absolutely astronomical savings. It took me years to fully actualize my plan, but in terms of financial solvency, the cut to capital and operational expenditures alone made it worth the wait 10 times over. I want to use this project as a case study to highlight the benefits of technical consultation, infrastructure analysis, and most importantly, business optimization.

First, a little backstory:

The aforementioned organization grew exponentially in a very short amount of time, more than doubling in size during the height of the COVID pandemic. Given that this aggressive growth took place rapidly in the middle of one of the most chaotic moments of the last century, time itself was of the essence. This is where I came in. I was originally hired on as a specialist to build a network to allow the organization to expand, as well as ensure industry-specific legal compliance company-wide.

I immediately went to work. During my initial research, I discovered that the organization was so bottle-necked by its technological infrastructure that it would devastate the core business if it tried to scale. Not only that, but the technology itself was creating non-compliance. Countless employees were forced to take matters in their own hands because technology was working against them, not for them. Shortcuts were taken. Technical debt and shadow IT were beginning to snowball. For me, that seemed to be the only organic growth occurring.

With all this in mind, I took decisive action and developed a strategic plan to align the technology with the core business, address the root cause of the systemic deficiencies, and optimize the operation. Without going into too much technical detail, what I had to do first was address the deficiencies that were causing workflow bottlenecks, and that started with the infrastructure. The infrastructure was an amalgamation of several different incompatible types of services, spanned across multiple locations. There was no unity, and the fragmentation was costing precious time. At this point, the only solution was to start over completely and create from the ground up. When it was all over, I was able to save almost two million dollars, streamline business processes, and deliver my original promise: a fully-cohesive network that would allow for any level of expansion, all the while ensuring legal compliance. There were many roadblocks to overcome, and sometimes I had to go against the grain with stakeholders, but I fought for what I knew would be the only solution from the perspective of doing what is best for the organization and its employees in the long run. The best part of all this? The executives of the organization had no idea the severity of the situation, and they had no visibility behind the scenes to quantify what they were losing. As a side effect of the project, they gained visibility into the technical back-end and were able to put hard numbers to elements that weren’t there before.

Many people don’t know things like this, just like the executives at the organization in this story. There are many companies and salesmen that will capitalize on that lack of knowledge. They will sell you things you don’t need for prices you don’t want, and that’s not something I can do. That’s not why I’m in business. 

I’m in business because I know these things. I have worked in sales. I know what prices are justifiable for what services are actually needed, and more importantly, I know what services are NOT needed. Why? Because I have also been an engineer.

I created Monadic with the idea that I would take all that I know and help small business owners, entrepreneurs, non-profits, public services, government, healthcare, etc., get the same benefits as large corporations: namely, the technical expertise required to make the kind of deals like the one above that can be a life jacket for businesses sinking in the ever-growing world of technology.

I hope this story helped shed some light on what is possible when you have dedicated I.T. on your side. Maybe the next story can be about you?