How CranstonIT protected a spinoff from spinning out of control.
Warehouse anywhere was about to embark on unchartered territory.
The company — a fully remote organization that offers its nationwide partners elite supply chain transformation and management — had just spun off from parent company Life Storage, a self-storage investment firm located in Buffalo, NY.
In the split, Jason Toney was not only promoted to Chief Financial Officer, but asked to oversee development of the company’s proprietary operations software.
Jason was a step ahead of the challenge.
“I knew that if I was ever in a position to procure an IT company, CranstonIT would be my first call,” he explained. “It would have been impossible to manage our pain points and seamlessly grow without their help.”
Here’s what makes Warehouse Anywhere so uniquely niche. And so uniquely complex.
The company brands itself as a catalyst for dynamic and effective supply chain evolution in three distinct industries — medical devices, field service and pharmaceuticals. Using its proprietary Spyglass technology, Warehouse Anywhere offers these industries compelling and streamlined solutions on a single platform that enable product positioning as close to the end user as possible.
For its medical device clients, Warehouse Anywhere ensures in-network inventory availability, FDA compliance and efficient last-mile delivery. Field service customers benefit from reduced technician response times, optimized inventory management and secure access. Pharmaceutical companies find higher efficiencies in managed self-storage, contract optimization and the availability of dedicated service representatives.
This, while Warehouse Anywhere often operates out of storage units, distribution warehouses or micro-fulfillment centers.
“It’s what makes us truly niche,” Jason said. “We have minimal competition because our competitors typically aren’t full supply chain operators.”
It’s what also makes Warehouse Anywhere’s value proposition incredibly powerful.
“We offer a technology-driven solution that can decentralize, monitor and move a company’s inventory more efficiently than a larger company trying to task this internally,” Jason explained. “It enables real-time supply chain management from anywhere. This gives our clients flexibility in inventory levels, improves their customer Service Level Agreements and reduces carry costs on inventory.”
Last year, Jason charged CranstonIT with building an IT infrastructure that remotely managed endpoint and networking solutions for Warehouse Anywhere’s employees throughout the country. He wanted to worry less, if at all, about staffing coverage and IT needs and focus more on software development.
To accomplish that goal, Warehouse Anywhere needed to outsource laptop deployment, network functionality and device oversight while ensuring data integrity and security for all its nationwide end points.
Plus, Jason said, he also needed to keep a keen eye on performance, costs and prioritization of asset and subscription management.
“It all would have been too costly, too time-consuming and too draining for an organization like ours that was quickly ramping up from the spinoff,” he recalled.
“So CranstonIT formulated a specialized plan for us that offered a multitude of solutions.” Toney said. “But it went beyond that. Their team offered additional concepts and options and outlined strategic individualized service for everything we discussed.”
Company President Patrick Cranston acknowledged the IT challenges getting Warehouse Anywhere independently off the ground.
“They were spinning off from Life Storage, and our goal was to separate them as seamlessly as possible from their shared MS365-Azure cloud-computing environment to their own dedicated environment,” Patrick recalled. “And at the same time, we also had to move them from their parent management backend to our management systems.”
Solving that challenge took planning and testing and multiple meetings with Life Storage to identify potential problem areas. Repeated trial-and-error testing was necessary before a new environment could be established.
“Along the way we worked hard to maintain communication between Life Storage’s IT Department and our client so that everyone understood how we navigated through the challenges,” Patrick said. “The execution allowed us to build trust throughout the entire spinoff process.”
Today, CranstonIT has a net tossed around the scattered locations and IT logistics presented by Warehouse Anywhere. The team sources and onboards Windows laptops and peripherals, maintains spare units, manages SharePoint and Microsoft365 and oversees cyber-security and other compliance protocols. Plus, CranstonIT is always sharing new and expanded program opportunities — in areas such as application development, cloud computing and cyber security.
“Clearly, CranstonIT has become our full-service IT company,” Jason said.
“We’ve put our trust in them as we’ve continued to grow because they have proven adaptable, efficient, professional and reliable,” he added. “Their value really surfaces when we can focus on what grows our business without being concerned for our IT infrastructure and networking issues. Those elements are always handled for us, and for that I’m certainly thankful.”
Cranston IT is a managed IT services company based in Pittsburgh, PA. The organization provides certified consultants, technicians and developers for IT solutions serving SMB and enterprise customers in the tri-state area and beyond.
For more information, contact Cranston IT today at 412-200-5656 or at support@cranstoninc.com
