Haugaard Creative Group is an award winning package design firm serving fortune 500 clients. With a staff of 18, productivity at the Mac-based business hinges on an efficient workflow and effective file sharing. Fast delivery of design proofs and quick turnaround on client reviews is a necessity to meet tight deadlines and win new projects. When the company’s workflow effectiveness was impinged by its existing technology, Haugaard sought the help of Apple Consultants Network member, Mission I.T. for help solving the challenges that were inhibiting business success.

  1. Impeded Workflow, Productivity, and Collaboration
    The busy team of designers and administrators at Haugaard shared files, opened a large accounting database, and performed collaborative tasks on an overworked server, across a slow network. The server experienced frequent crashes, making it unreliable and forcing designers to store their creative files locally—preventing efficient collaboration and impeding workflow. In addition, the slow internet connection not only created bottlenecks in-house, but lacked remote access for designers to collaborate with the onsite team. With the server at maximum capacity and large design files stored on local desktops, collaborating became a serious workflow impediment.
  2. Inefficient Client Communications and Approvals
    Equally detrimental was the inability for designers to easily collaborate with their clients in order to gain the necessary feedback on design proofs. Progress on design projects had to be kept on hold while CDs and DVDs with crucial data were messengered back and forth between Haugaard’s offices and their client locations—an expensive and time consuming process.
  3. Unprotected Intellectual Property and Critical Business Information
    Haugaard Creative Group’s business counted on the package designs they created for their clients. Loss of that data would be catastrophic. In addition, vital company information like payroll and accounts receivable needed to be protected. Without an automatic backup solution in place, manual backups were made to CD/DVD—which was time consuming and thus done infrequently. As a result, the company was left unprotected from critical business loss, and difficult access to archived project materials was costing them time and productivity.

Haugaard knew they needed drastic improvements to their infrastructure to prevent business from grinding to halt. With the help of Mission I.T. the company recognized that it would need to update its IT network server and storage investments to serve their present needs and provide room to grow. Since its core business could not afford to slow down, the implementation plan needed to minimize disruption to its busy design team.

Mission I.T. recommends Mac solution for the best ROI.
Haugaard knew that a serious investment had to be made. So, Mission I.T. helped them weigh the options: A Windows server might have been the common solution. However, with the cost of the server, software, and user licenses and the potential difficulty of integrating with Mac desktops, it was evident that a Mac OS X solution was a better option. In the end, a solution based on Xserve and Xserve RAID was chosen as the more effective and lower-priced option.

“Within hours of deploying our solution and providing basic training, the designers at Haugaard began working more efficiently. Users were amazed at their newfound capabilities. This result showcases the best our services and Apple equipment can provide for enterprise level business management solutions.”

— Raymond Sheno, Owner, Mission I.T.

Xserve and Xserve RAID revolutionize network capabilities, with room to grow.
Mission I.T. used a holistic approach, taking into consideration all of Haugaard’s requirements and objectives. They recommended an Xserve with 7 TB disk and Xserve RAID for redundancy—increasing storage capacity and performance while providing needed scalability. Centralizing shared files onto the new server improved workflow efficiency and enabled designers to collaborate with ease. Mission I.T. also enhanced Haugaard’s overall communication capabilities with increased internet bandwidth, new network router and switch, and a new website and email system. They transformed the client review process by providing secure client FTP access, eradicating the need for inefficient messenger services. They created a VPN (Virtual Area Network) to allow remote users to collaborate with the team, and they developed a complete backup strategy with bi-weekly off-site backup rotation on external drives, to reduce the company’s risk of data loss. Lastly, Mission I.T. recommended AppleCare Premium Service and Support Plan, providing integrated service and support for their Xserve technologies.

Haugaard Creative Group benefited from immediate results.