Customer Stories

RESULT S Post-Harvey, all of Beyer's Spectrum data and functionality is hosted in the cloud and nobody knows anything different. According to Krejci, "We never had any downtime and we don't have to worry about any updates; it's part of the package." Now, the only infrastructure located on premise is an internet connection, a backup internet connection, a switch that bounces between the two, a couple of Wi-Fi access points and ethernet switches, "That's all the infrastructure I have here, because I don't need anything else," Krejci said. Krejci now relies on the convenience of calling on a highly-trained software customer service team, and the comfort of having more than one IT guy who's working to meet his needs 24/7. As a result of moving the cloud, Krejci says the majority of his project managers (PMs) now use laptops, since they're no longer chained to their desks or reliant on data delivered through an on-prem server room. Before the cloud, PMs would drive to the office at 5 a.m. to do 45 minutes of paperwork before heading to a project or jobsite, spend the day on-site, and then return to the office around 3:30 p.m. to finish up before heading home. Now, with improved off-site connectivity and accessibility to the data and tools they need to work anywhere, any time, the company is investing more laptops for PMs who want to be more mobile, rather than server towers anchoring employees to campus. To companies still resisting the move to the cloud like Beyer once did, Krejci offers a friendly warning, "What I have now that they don't is time. With these technology changes, I can move quicker than they can, and there are going be some bigger changes in construction technology soon, so, if they're not already in the cloud, they're already behind." Beyer was started by Krejci's uncle in 1983. Many of the original staff still work there, with about 50 or more employees who have been there for 25 years or longer. "We're very much an old company, and we're kind of the new generation," Krejci said of himself and his cousin, who helped start many of the Beyer Group Ltd. entities that serve customers today. "It's kind of a joke around here: you've got the father's company and the son's company. We're not quite millennials, but we had email in college.

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