Manufacturing

CLIENT NEED

In 2004, a California-based private equity firm acquired two women's apparel catalog companies. At the time of the acquisition, both companies were using Eddie Bauer applications based on a mainframe in Chicago, along with UNIX and Microsoft Servers. As part of the acquisition agreement, both companies had to be off the Eddie Bauer IT systems by a specific date in 2005 - a significant technological challenge.

PLANIT Technology Group INVOLVEMENT

With such a daunting task and firm deadline - one that the current staff of both companies was unable to meet without help - the equity firm hired PLANIT Technology Group as a consultant. The challenges included establishing IT services in Virginia and a Citrix Server call center in Canada. This assignment required expertise in various technologies, such as Citrix, Cisco, UNIX, COBOL, .NET, VTAM and LAN/WAN.

BENEFITS ACHIEVED

The equity firm was able to meet the high-risk and aggressive deadline for the complete migration of all IT systems for the two merged companies. PLANIT Technology Group received a letter of recognition from the President and CEO of one of the acquired companies, and the relationship is ongoing. Because of the direction we provided, the equity firm now has:

• A single point of contact for their technology needs
• A full-spectrum of IT experts who understand the technology and business challenges at both acquired companies 
• Local ongoing support and expertise across all IT systems, from application software to infrastructure