A1 Technologies gave Wahl Australia the much-needed server makeover it was looking for.
When it comes to trimming hair, Wahl Clipper Corporation has been there from the start as the company is known for inventing the first electric hair clippers, but keeping things tidy on top can be difficult with ageing IT systems.
The Australian arm of the corporation, Wahl Australia was in need of a system overhaul that allowed employees to have access to its systems when on the road.
David Grant, CEO of Wahl Australia, called the system access at the time “very limited and somewhat primitive”.
“It worked some days and didn't work in others,” Grant said. “Once you were outside of the office, you had zero access to what was to our server.
“We put that server in place probably four years ago. Prior to that we actually had nothing. We had a back-up system for our ERP system, but that was it. Back-ups on individual laptops, all work was desktop-based and the backup was being done by external hard drives. And that was very, very intermittent and very irregular.”
Concerns about the system came to a head when an employee, who was helping out with the IT systems on a part-time basis, left Wahl. The business then decided to partner with A1 Technologies and were in the market to move to a cloud-based system.
After consulting with A1 Technologies at the end of 2018, it was decided that Wahl would move to Microsoft 365 Business, as it would allow the corporation to be able to access whatever information they wanted, wherever they wanted it, as well as improving security and backups.
Rob Rattray, CEO of A1 Technologies, said that it was evident from the first meeting with Grant and the Wahl team that moving to Microsoft 365 Business would be the best move.
According to Rattray, both businesses were on the same page regarding moving into the cloud, the need to have better back-up, better security and better collaboration.
After moving to the new system in early 2019, Wahl quickly noticed the upsides of the new system, as they were able to access company data remotely no matter where they were, according to Grant.
Rattray estimates 90 per cent of the project was completed about six months ago, with A1 Technologies focusing the rest of their efforts on optimisation.
“It changed everything,” Grant said. “I'm sitting at home, I need a file and I can now access it straight off my desktop, and I'm not even in the same room when my laptop's off.
“And I can do it on my phone and I can flick it to my finance manager from another country or whatever. It's just brilliant. The access it is giving us is, it's, it's so seamless, it's so simple to use.”
Grant added that while he generally considers himself to have high expectations, A1 Technologies’ work with the new system exceeded them.
“We haven't even scratched the surface on what this thing is capable of and what it will do for our business in the future is, it’s significant,” he said.
