Having tallied eleven winning seasons, three National Professional Soccer League Championships and seven conference championships, "The Crunch" is a model of a successful professional indoor soccer team. Under new ownership since 1999, Northcoast Professional Sports, Ltd. has increased its commitment to league development and community soccer camps and clinics, and now helps instruct more than 8,000 kids each year.

As often happens in small to mid-size organizations, the management of The Crunch was under pressure to cut costs. With a single employee responsible for their organization’s IT network, the status of the organization’s systems, technological performance, IT capabilities and costs was unclear to management. They called PC On Call to find out what kind of IT solutions they could provide.

An initial consultation confirmed that, in addition to being overly reliant upon a single employee for critical operations, company management lacked any detailed documentation of their existing IT infrastructure. The organization was also experiencing chronic email problems and occasional network interruptions. In addition to reducing IT expenditures, management was eager for an unbiased outside perspective on the overall condition of their network.

PC On Call consulted with Crunch management to discuss capabilities and options, prioritize objectives, and to establish a budget and timeline. As the first step, PC On Call recommended a complete On Call CheckUp (OCCU) to accurately assess the current infrastructure and to provide the desired network documentation upon which all future solutions would be based.

In addition to providing detailed system documentation, the On Call CheckUp successfully identified various incompatibilities and configuration conflicts as a source of the company's email problems, and revealed that a lack of consistent virus protection was responsible for problems which had previously gone undetected and/or undiagnosed.

Upon approval of their plan, PC On Call technicians implemented several solutions: First, they identified and eliminated existing viruses, then installed Norton Anti-Virus Corporate Edition to protect the network from future infections. Next, they resolved interface incompatibilities to alleviate the system's email problems.

PC On Call completed the initial CheckUp and service on time and on budget. Based upon PC On Call’s initial performance, The Crunch is now an On Call IT Partner taking advantage of regular, preventive server maintenance and as-needed PC task management. To assure consistent future service, a secondary PC On Call technician has been trained to back up the dedicated lead technician for The Crunch.
 

From the time of the initial Crunch inquiry, PC On Call conducted initial consultation and situational review, and, with the approval of the On Call CheckUp proposal, was able to complete the network audit and make recommendations within one month.

Now six months from their initial inquiry, The Crunch have realized numerous objectives:

• Compiled detailed documentation of IT infrastructure and capabilities

• Eliminated the cost of a full-time IT facilitator

• Optimized mission-critical software performance

• Eliminated virus problems and improved network stability and security

• Identified and alleviated source of recurring email problems

• Initiated ongoing preventive server maintenance service

• Developed the desired partnership with a reliable outsourced IT provider