From on-premise to "in the cloud," Beyer Group LTD discusses how software in the cloud helped them serve clients before, during and after Hurricane Harvey. 

Challenge

The companies of Beyer Group Ltd. have been using Viewpoint’s Spectrum Construction Software in some capacity for more than 20 years. “At the end of the day, I want to see all my companies in one account system,” and that’s what Spectrum provides, according to Gene Krejci, chief financial officer (CFO) at Beyer Group Ltd. Beyer started using Spectrum in 1999 and, at the time, had a top-of-the-line information technology (IT) infrastructure on-premise. “We had fancy racks in a special room and dedicated air conditioner—but we really didn’t know what we had.”

With three buildings on a sprawling 14-acre campus and about 450 employees in Houston (520, including the Austin office), getting IT right was a major concern for past management. Facing connectivity and power problems on its then remotely located campus were two reasons the company never considered moving to the cloud. “We kept dumping big money into servers,” Krejci recalled. This IT infrastructure was maintained off and on by a third-party IT manager until the events of Harvey in 2017.

Beyer must meet the needs of an “emergency” client base, many of whom need municipal services completed immediately in the wake of disaster or danger. For instance, one company handles emergency infrastructure maintenance: “If a truck driver runs over a fire hydrant in the middle of the night, we go out and fix it.” Another company maintains levees and drainage ditches around the southwest side of Houston, so during Harvey, Beyer was busy with pump stations, inflatable boats, high-water vehicles and helicopters, and didn’t need the added frustration of severed connections from a server room submerged in floodwaters.

Continue reading the customer story to learn more about how Beyer Group Ltd. overcame their challenges.