How The Wallace Group is Saving Time and Money in the Cloud

Headquartered in Bend Oregon, The Wallace Group provides practical, applied earth and environmental science solutions to commercial, industrial, governmental, and institutional clients throughout the Pacific Northwest. Founded in 2010, their employees are recognized geosystem experts in Central Oregon and Washington.

When The Wallace Group’s servers crashed in fall 2020, they knew it was time to move their business to the cloud.  They worked with Deltek to quickly move their Deltek Ajera Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution to the Deltek Cloud. In just a few days, their systems were back up running, and they could get back to managing projects, creating invoices, and processing payroll.

According to Tina Bordieri, Administrative Manager, there was no retraining required. “Some cloud solutions look completely different than the version you see on your server. Not Deltek. The Ajera ERP system is identical in the cloud. Once the system was live our employees could open up their laptops and get right back to work,” she said.

With overall responsibility for Human Resources, Accounting and Information Technology (IT) in her role, Bordieri has seen significant cost, security and time saving benefits by moving to the cloud.

Work Efficiently and Effectively from Anywhere

The move to the cloud also addressed an ongoing and significant business challenge that the firm was struggling with since the pandemic hit in 2020 – effectively supporting their distributed workforce. “Our on-premises solution couldn’t fully support our teams when we had to temporarily close our offices due to COVID-19. We simply couldn’t complete all of our work effectively without being in the office,” said Bordieri.

Moving forward, Deltek Ajera in the cloud will better support their dispersed teams, providing all employees full system access no matter where they are – in the field, at home, or in the office. Some employees have even noticed their system is working faster, especially those with older laptops.

Cost Savings and Increased Security

The most significant cost savings for The Wallace Group was eliminating their in-house hardware. They no longer need to buy a new server every five years and worry about it crashing early like their last one. Plus, they don’t have to stress about the cost of outsourcing frequent and expensive system updates to their external IT vendor to keep their systems secure and up-to-date. “It’s a significant amount of time we don’t need to spend that will save us about 25% in cost savings annually,” said Bordieri.

Before moving to the cloud, the Deltek team presented The Wallace Group with a financial breakdown of the cost savings and increased security they would see by moving to the cloud. “How it was presented is exactly what we have seen since implementation and everything is included in one flat fee – we really appreciate that,” she said.

Onboarding Employees in Fraction of the Time

The Wallace Group is now able to onboard employees in a fraction of the time. It’s a huge efficiency gain that reduces employee computer set up time from days to only five to 10 minutes. This saves Bordieri significant time as she no longer needs to physically get the devices to their external IT vendor, have them load the software, and then get the devices back to the office. In addition, there is a significant cost savings as it only takes 10 minutes of her time verses a bill from the IT vendor.

Complimentary Product Training Enables Teams

The team is also utilizing Deltek University for online product training to enable their teams to better utilize the software. Included with their new cloud package, they are exploring content tailored to specific aspects of their business. Bordieri is taking classes and sharing key learnings with the larger team, while the owner of the firm is focusing on how to create more advanced reports. In the future, the firm is planning to offer training to the project managers to help them leverage Ajera to better manage their projects.

Deltek ERP in the Cloud: Powering Project Success

Deltek supports architecture and engineering firms with our highly reliable, secure and scalable SaaS solutions in the Deltek Cloud. As you evaluate your business goals, consider if moving to the Deltek Cloud is the right move. Read this blog post to learn more.

By moving your ERP or accounting solution to the Deltek Cloud, let Deltek handle patching and maintenance. This includes monitoring of cybersecurity risks to increase security against potential vulnerabilities. Let Deltek’s team of security and cloud experts handle the IT hassles with confidence that your firm is up and running on the latest infrastructure to power your business now and into the future. Discover the benefits.