Status and Success story of surviving an acquisition
In November of 2019, Keeney was acquired by Oatey -It was a very emotional and challenging transition. The first 2 months were learning and embracing new technology and change at a rapid pace. I have always wanted to get the chance to work with newer technology that was not in the budget. Our IT required integrating networks at multiple sites, relocating servers, procuring hardware and software, managing tech vendors, training, and a physical building move. That was just the beginning of what lay in front of us! Covid-19 hit and Keeney needed to move out of the building in Farmington that we just moved to! Plans had to be quickly drawn up to mobilize Keeney’s users to work from home. On the heels of mobilizing the users, Keeney even moved from an old email platform to Oatey’s O365 while working from home. It all happened in months and I was part of a great team.When I take a step back and look where we are as a company today, I cannot get over the technical transformation that took place in mere months.
November 2019-July 2020…How it went down and what I was involved in:
- Acquisition
- Downsized department
- Network Integration
- On-prem servers to off-prem via a cloud-first perspective
- Mainframe move to new datacenter
- New building move Physical servers, phone system, user workstations hardware
- Building shut down
- Covid-19 hit; procured laptops mobilized users via image for speed
- 0365 & Teams rolled out and training all users
- Mail Migration to 0365 and training all users
- Traditional File Server shutdown migrate to Box & Training all users Global
- PC inventory Refresh multi site
- Lead SolarWinds Asset tracking with discovery agent
- Planogram research
- Upgraded Screenscape (corporate digital signage)
Ryan Messier 