Not happy. That was Keith Hay Homes’ situation with their IT services supplier earlier this year. Service delivery was slow and inflexible, and there was a question mark around the supplier’s operational viability, given internal changes. Keith Hay Homes wanted an adaptable, responsive IT services provider it could build a long-term, collaborative partnership with. When the incumbent IT services supplier contract ended, Keith Hay Homes went to market and following a careful research and selection process, the company found its new partner in CodeBlue.

With nine branches around the North Island, around 40 staff, and a fast-growing Christchurch operation, Keith Hay Homes is a pioneer and market leader in building and supplying affordable but high quality relocatable and pre-fabricated homes, and school and commercial buildings.

The company is family-owned and operated. Roseanne Hay (Finance and Administration Manager) and her brother Mathew Hay (General Manager) are grandchildren of company founder Keith Hay – a former mayor of Mt Roskill, an Auckland Regional Authority Councillor, and a respected philanthropist and champion of Christian and family values.

With strong new business demand in a burgeoning new home market, Keith Hay Homes Finance and Administration Manager Roseanne Hay says the search for a new IT services partner to replace the incumbent was not taken lightly.

“Our IT system is the backbone of our business. From working with customers on new home plans, to coordinating material suppliers, managing inventory, and all the routine business management requirements from payroll to financials, we depend on our system to be fast and reliable.

“When our contract with our previous IT services supplier came to an end we took the opportunity to research the market and went through a very careful process to select a new IT services partner. We looked at four or five different IT companies. We put CodeBlue on the list because they were recommended by other companies that we do business with.”

Flexibility and ability to change

“The reason we picked CodeBlue was we thought they had the greatest flexibility and could change with us in the future. We reference checked CodeBlue with both new and old customers, including customers that CodeBlue didn’t give us as official references. And CodeBlue checked out way better than anyone else on our short list.

“CodeBlue were able to talk to us from a business, non-technical perspective. At the end of the day it was the affinity we felt with the people – decent, good people that you could have a long-term business partnership with. And the company was financially stable – that was important as we were concerned about the financial stability of the predecessor,” Roseanne Hay says.

“We switched over in April this year. The implementation went smoothly – very seamless and well coordinated. Since then we have had very few issues with our system and when a fix or changes have been required CodeBlue has been excellent.”

“We picked CodeBlue because at the end of the day it was the affinity we felt with the people – decent, good people that you could have a long-term business partnership with. We reference checked CodeBlue with both new and old customers, including customers that CodeBlue didn’t give us as official references. And CodeBlue checked out way better than anyone else on our short list.” says Keith Hay Homes’ Finance and Administration Manager, Roseanne Hay.

CodeBlue’s Desktop and Infrastructure as a Service cloud solution

CodeBlue Virtual CIO Chris Thorpe says Keith Hay Homes is a showcase for CodeBlue’s outsourced Desktop and Infrastructure as a Service cloud solution, delivering higher speed, better uptime, full data resiliency, and easy expansion as the business grows – all at an equivalent cost to the old legacy system.

A new wide area network provides Keith Hay Homes’ users around the country with secure access to CodeBlue’s data centre-based virtual private server cloud solution. A single onsite server remains to run Keith Hay Homes’ CAD system; however CodeBlue now supplies, services and owns that server, building it in to the wider solution, which includes full cover via a CodeBlue Data Resiliency Services DRS Advanced managed service contract. DRS Advanced provides full data resiliency, ensuring backups of all servers (both onsite and off-site) are completed every day, without hassle, without manual intervention.