Overhauling a Small Utility Commission’s IT with Strategic Budgeting

Seabrook Island Utility Commission

Seabrook Island Utility Commission provides safe, high-quality water services to its community in North Charleston, South Carolina. The area is growing rapidly in both population and economic development. As a result, the service demands on the Commission are increasing, and they realized technology had become a burden holding them back instead of a tool enabling more progress.

“We’re so happy with how much faster everything is and the incredible level of service VC3 provides us on a daily basis.” – Tommy West, Manager

The Challenge – Slow and Costly

Out-of-date equipment. Frequent and reoccurring issues. Frustrated employees. Seabrook Island Utility Commission wasn’t satisfied with their IT services, technical debt, and a large pending technological capital expense.

They needed a proactive IT partner to guide them out of technical issues and establish a roadmap to ensure healthy IT into the future.

The Solution – Speed and Predictable Budgeting

The Commission moved to a new IT partner, VC3. We first sought to understand their organization, then assessed their current environment and developed a plan for improvement.

Minimize Capital Expense with Predictable Operational Expenses

We improved the entire staff’s speed and efficiency with new, upgraded computers. This was done without a capital barrier because we offer Hardware as a Service (HaaS). This kept the upfront capital expense to a minimum and helped make the monthly budget predictable.

Improve Server Efficiency

We also discovered that more servers were being used than necessary, so we consolidated the servers to reduce maintenance costs and improve efficiency.

Bundle Services for Better Service and Simple Budgeting

A Voice over IP (VoIP) phone system was bundled in to increase cost savings and decrease the burden of managing multiple partners.

The Thirteenth Donut – More Security

You’re likely familiar with the baker’s dozen. We like to find ways to include a metaphorical thirteenth donut for our clients too. So, we helped the Commission apply for and receive the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Cyber Monitoring package at no cost. This immediately improved their cybersecurity defenses.

The Results – IT Supporting Organizational Growth

The Commission finally has IT services on par with the quality of the organization. Computers are modern and fast, security is more comprehensive and sophisticated, and we’re saving them time and money with reliable IT aligned to their organizational goals.

Fewer Problems

We reduced their number of service tickets by 82% in the first six months.

More Responsive Service

We’re solving 72% of tickets in under 8 hours. The average response time to tickets is 12 hours and 10 minutes, according to SuperOffice, a leading CRM company.

Predictable Budgeting

The Commission's IT budget is now predictable and reviewed monthly with a Strategic Advisor.