Kyocera Balances Security and Productivity With Sustainable Success
Making Relocation Seamless
California-based Merrimak Capital, a full-service equipment management company and equipment lessor, was moving its headquarters to Utah after the pandemic. Because employees were now going to work in multiple states, secure access to all required applications and data was not an option—it was a necessity. Merrimak was in need of a way to accommodate office-based, remote and mobile workers, all while minimizing disruptions and ensuring scalability.
Merrimak hosted 52 employees using five on-premises servers and applications supported by its own internal information technology (IT) team. The company ran 15 applications on desktop devices and used on-premises QuickBooks for its enterprise resource program and planning (ERP). Merrimak Capital's internal IT team supported the core local applications in an on-premises data center.
Upon moving its headquarters to Utah, the company's main challenges came down to two underlying questions: How were the remote IT employees going to embed everyone securely into the new work environment? And how was the new Utah location going to receive IT support without sufficient on-site IT staff?
In an effort to resolve these, Merrimak approached Kyocera Document Solutions America (Kyocera), a division of the Kyocera Group, a full-service technology partner that provides content services, IT infrastructure and document hardware to a wide range of companies and organizations, enabling them to access and utilize data and information from any location. This combination of offerings, along with Kyocera's customer-centric approach and reputation for reliability distinguish the company from its competition.
Merrimak already had a longstanding relationship with Kyocera: It had utilized the company for printing devices and IT services in the past. Kyocera also knew Merrimak's key stakeholders and the ins and outs of its business quite well.
This multidisciplinary expertise, and dependable reputation is a reason customers like Merrimak choose Kyocera as their partner for business critical projects. Kyocera not only provides application and platform expertise for content services, but it also provides professional prowess in IT operations, end user support, change management, help desk operations and data center management, in addition to its hardware and infrastructure expertise.
Expertise Plus Support Equals Best Solutions Partner
By leveraging Kyocera's specialized knowledge and multidisciplinary expertise, Merrimak was able to transform its current IT infrastructure to a 100 percent cloud-based solution. In addition to migrating all Merrimak's applications, including ERP and accounting to vendor-hosted cloud applications and storage, Kyocera incorporated automated workflows to ensure the proper flow of information, regardless of where the user is located. Kyocera also transitioned Merrimak's user experience to the cloud with Microsoft 365 solutions for applications, file storage and collaboration.
Raj Chumbar, the solutions architect at Kyocera, explained, "We helped Merrimak consolidate from 74 workstations to 50 workstations and go from five servers to two servers in the cloud hosting environment, with little to no impact on their day-to-day business operations. It took weeks of testing and verification, but once the client was comfortable, we went to production mode."
Joseph Fuccillo, the vice president of software and information and communications technology (ICT) at Kyocera, added, "Through our support, Merrimak moved from an on-premise IT operation to a cloud-based operation, which not only enabled a remote workforce but also offered business agility and data protection."
Merrimak employees were now able to securely access their individually configured cloud desktop from anywhere through virtually any internet-enabled device. They had complete access to the applications, data and network resources necessary to perform their job, no matter where they were located.
Together, Kyocera's long-standing relationship with Merrimak, its commitment to understanding Merrimak's business model and qualifications, combined with the support of the Merrimak team, led to incredible results. "Merrimak was a great customer to work with," relayed Fuccillo. Added Chumbar, "From the minute we engaged with Merrimak, all the way to the end, when we achieved normal operations, our engineers dedicated a whole team to the migration to make sure everything went smoothly."
Not only did Merrimak save on the high capital costs that come with buying hardware and software, Kyocera's support also enabled its employees to access resources in minutes, usually within a few clicks. This increased speed and scalability allowed Merrimak's internal IT team to be more productive and focus on new goals.
Driving Digital Transformation
Kyocera continues to transform its products, software and IT service offerings so it can enable its customers to drive digital transformation within their companies and take their businesses to new heights. Kyocera will keep investing resources and time into its customers so it can understand their environment and arrive at custom designed solutions that meet and even exceed expectations.
Kyocera aims to create a future in which every organization can easily access and utilize data and information in order to better serve its customers. It will continue to invest in cloud platform infrastructure and develop new platforms for content management and collaboration and workflow management. "I think Kyocera has an exciting future that will provide customers with new and improved capabilities," said Fuccillo.
Merrimak's new cloud-based solution has now been in operation for about one year. The company no longer relies on a traditional on-premise network that limits employees to a specific geographic location. Today Merrimak is positioned to embrace the "anywhere" workforce, which will be vital as it grows and expands.
Kyocera is excited to continue to support Merrimak as it evolves. "Merrimak is a great business partner," said Fuccillo, "we are thrilled that we could provide them with a solution to meet their present business needs. We look forward to growing with them as their business needs change, and I see a great road ahead for both companies."
