It has probably been awhile since you received a fax. Until recently, that was not the case for Justin Tolar.
“Only a few years ago, we were still faxing and printing out every document,” says Tolar. “We didn’t really have an IT department, and we were definitely behind the times.”
Tolar serves as the information technology manager at Austin Wood Recycling (AWR), a company that specializes in land clearing and development. With over 200 employees, AWR operates offices in Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with plans to expand to Houston and San Antonio. The company produces the line of Texas Native premium landscape products. In addition to their own product line, AWR processes and packages mulch and soil for other companies. As the nation’s largest grinding contractor, AWR is committed to responsible forestry, converting cleared vegetation, stumps and trees into mulch for sustainable projects.
Tolar says despite AWR’s success, the company’s IT infrastructure was inadequate. In addition to relying on paperwork, AWR was operating on outdated hardware, which not only limited their ability to scale but also posed significant risks to reliability and cybersecurity. The company wanted to modernize their IT infrastructure by moving to a cloud-based model that would improve operational efficiency, enhance data accessibility and reduce the overhead associated with maintaining on-premises hardware.
To accomplish this objective, the company called in RSM US LLP.