Success Stories

Syscon Success Stories

Success Stories

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Christ Church of Oak Brook - A Model That Works

Outsourcing of Information Technology Support
Christ Church of Oak Brook, Oak Brook, Illinois

A Caring Organization with Complex Needs
Since 1965, Christ Church of Oak Brook has served the Chicago community and beyond. The vision of its founder, the Rev. Arthur H. DeKruyter, created an immediate impact on the community and Christ Church grew quickly from the beginning. In 1997, the founding pastor was succeeded by the Rev. Daniel D. Meyer. Today, with over 5,000 members, dozens of ministries, and a significant television and radio media outreach, Christ Church of Oak Brook touches the lives of thousands every week.

Naturally, as one of the most progressive and innovative churches in the Chicago area, Christ Church started using technology early to support its programs, staff, and ministries. In 1997, Syscon began helping Christ Church with their technology needs. With a mixed environment of Novell, Microsoft, and Apple platforms, Christ Church needed expert help from time-to-time to supplement their own staff. Syscon’s depth of expertise, willingness to train and support existing IT staff, and prior experience with non-profit organizations made them an ideal technology partner for Christ Church.

Reaching Out
Organization leadership had a vision of reaching out even further – using volunteers, e-mail, the internet, and technology as a way to reach more people with the resources available. In 2005, David L. Melvin, Executive Director of Ministry Services for Christ Church, looked to Syscon to substantially increase its role as a key partner by fully outsourcing all IT support and management to Syscon. It was important that the use of technology was not the focus, but a tool that empowered more people to serve through the church’s resources.

“It was impossible to hire the full depth needed to support a full and quickly evolving network. Furthermore, we needed support which we could depend upon for quick and successful response and, above all, a support team which we could trust with extremely confidential information.” said Melvin. “Our core talent is serving people, not managing IT. So when the opportunity arose to hand the responsibility over to a capable partner that we trusted, it was an easy decision.”

The culture shift from an internal staff to an outsource model had its challenges as Syscon stepped in to immediately plug some security holes. The message from Melvin to Syscon in May of 2005 was clear and concise with regard to Information Technology:

1. Make it work
2. Make it work better and more reliably
3. Answer our questions quicker
4. Do it on budget

Technology Transformation
In response, Syscon quickly established standardized procedures for maintenance, documentation, and handling user requests. Over the next year, the significant IT assets of Christ Church were cataloged and evaluated. Aging technology – both hardware and software – was identified and scheduled for replacement as budget allowed. To facilitate the use of volunteers and part-time staff, remote access systems were strengthened and made available on a broader basis.

As Syscon’s efforts impacted the organization, the staff and volunteers began to trust the reliability of the technology and subsequently began to use it more – a typical culture response to improved systems. Christ Church has an IT system that now measures 291 on Syscon’s Network Complexity Index - up 47% from 5 years ago.

The system spans multiple servers and hundreds of IT assets; four mission critical databases (e-mail, donor, financial, and intranet); many minor databases and applications; and hundreds of thousands of user files.

A Model That Works
Christ Church now has a technology infrastructure that is appropriate for their needs, highly reliable, and maintained within a pre-determined budget. Several Syscon technicians of varying levels are always available to provide support. Strategic IT planning is done with the help of a senior Syscon consultant in cooperation with the Christ Church staff and Board of Trustees. An annual budget is set based on balancing the needs and resources of the church and Syscon accountable to meet that budget.

David Melvin sums up the relationship with this statement: “Syscon is a valued partner for Christ Church. Their expertise allows us to focus on using technology, not creating or maintaining it. ”

Highlights of Syscon IT Support at Christ Church
• Christ Church IT supported for over 10 years by Syscon
• A relationship that changed and evolved to meet the needs of Christ Church
• Syscon provides full-time on-site IT staff plus emergency support 7 days a week.
• Syscon documents and handles dozens of user requests each week
• Syscon responsible to maintain entire network infrastructure
• Syscon provides user support for mission critical applications such as “Shelby Systems”
• Syscon provides IT Equipment Asset Management and Procurement

Labels: case study, IT, network, outsource

posted by Web Master at 5:21 PM 0 Comments

Friday, February 8, 2008

Cost to Complete Management Program for Sage Master Builder

"I highly recommend this program to anyone using Master Builder. It seamlessly pulls in your job data with absolute accuracy. The entry screen itself is very clear and everyone understands it almost instantly."

Lisa Newbold, CFO and Controller
Leff Construction, Sebastopol, CA

Kind words from Lisa about Syscon's Cost to Complete Management Program for Sage Master Builder users.

Read the complete letter from Lisa below...

1/29/08

As a former Sage Master Builder Certified Consultant, and now CFO and Controller of a high-end residential general contracting company, I am in a unique position to recommend Syscon’s Cost to Complete program. I’d like to tell you why you should be calculating Cost to Complete, and why the Syscon program is your best choice.

First of all, why calculate cost to complete at all? There are three reasons why I find it useful. One is that it gives your project managers a way to see where they really stand on the job. Overall, will they be over or under budget? Also, by looking at cost to complete by cost code and cost type, they can use it as a tool to predict if they’re headed in the wrong direction in an area and, if so, re-think their plan for that work. As you know, almost the minute you start working on a job things change from the estimate. It’s just not possible to foresee every condition in the field from a set of plans and (maybe) a couple of site visits. How valuable is a tool that lets you look at the real situation on the job site and adjust your strategy to minimize costs?

Second, this is, in my opinion, the best tool for calculating over- and underbillings so you can prepare a work in progress (WIP) report each month. Your WIP adjustment is likely to be the most significant adjustment to your income statement at month end. If you’re not making the WIP entry at all, or you’re using a budget vs. job cost number such as Master Builder’s Work in Progress or Bonding reports, you’re not getting accurate financials, period. Syscon’s Cost to Complete program uses your staff’s knowledge of what’s happening on the job NOW to calculate where you are headed. And it interfaces wonderfully with their Work in Progress program – but that’s a different recommendation!

There’s a third great financial benefit to the Cost to Complete program. It gives company management a tool to predict gain or loss on jobs before the job is complete. This allows more accurate financial predictions, and therefore much better cash flow planning. Maybe I’ve talked you into calculating your cost to complete on jobs, but why buy Syscon’s program?

Initially I helped a commercial contractor client implement Syscon’s Cost to Complete program as part of their conversion to Master Builder. They depended on cost to complete in their old software, in fact it was their most important financial management tool. Master Builder is a great program, but its cost to complete module does not run by accounting period nor by cost type. The ability to calculate by accounting period is critical, since otherwise you don’t have a clean cut off to create your work in progress schedule (a.k.a. over/underbillings) at month end. The separation by cost type is important because it adds precision and accuracy when reviewing data and entering your predictions, and therefore more accuracy in your results.

Now I’ve taken a job with one of my construction clients. I love being back in the “real world” and taking the financials from start to finish. The best things about my job are getting more accuracy into our financial statements, using all the tools I can find to manage our company by the numbers, and helping to predict and plan where we’re going. After my experience with my client, I knew we had to have this program. Now we use it monthly, and it doesn’t just help with our financial statements. The production manager, the estimator, the job’s superintendent and I sit down together each month and go through the job. It helps the superintendent manage the job more effectively, it allows the production manager to see in detail where the job stands and resolve problem areas, it gives the estimator instant feedback, and it gives me the financial accuracy and planning benefits I mentioned earlier.

I highly recommend this program to anyone using Master Builder. It seamlessly pulls in your job data with absolute accuracy. The entry screen itself is very clear and everyone understands it almost instantly. It includes the original budget and current budgets, as well as committed costs like subcontracts. It also remembers your prediction from month to month so you don’t have to re-think the numbers. We’ve found it an incredible tool for many reasons, and I believe you will, too.

Lisa Newbold

Labels: Billing, Complete, Job Cost, Master Builder, Over, Under, WIP

posted by Web Master at 4:59 PM 0 Comments