How the Deltek Cloud Powers AMT's Remote Workforce

For more than 60 years, A. Morton Thomas and Associates, Inc. (AMT) has provided civil engineering, surveying, environmental, landscape architecture, and construction engineering inspection services across the Mid-Atlantic and Southern United States.

With 20 offices in seven states and more than 400 employees, AMT needed a proactive solution to address aging hardware and the extensive time needed to maintain their Deltek solution and infrastructure. By moving to the Deltek Cloud, AMT has seen a spike in user adoption and innovation.

One year after implementing the Deltek Cloud, Pete Strawser, Director, Technology and Facilities, shared his engineering and construction firm’s success story in this Tech Talk, Leveraging the Deltek Cloud. When AMT implemented the Deltek Cloud he had no idea what was in store for their business in 2020, but through this cloud technology they were able to create a safe and secure working environment for employees working from home across the country.

Why AMT Moved to the Cloud

Before implementing the Deltek Cloud, AMT managed all of their hardware in-house. They had grown from a single location with a lot of people to a more dispersed environment with employees in 20 offices. They took a look at the challenges and work involved with back-ups, security risks, and storage capacity and decided to move to the cloud. According to Strawser, “The business as a whole focused on what might go wrong, such as ‘Did you reboot the report server?’ and ‘Is the system secure?’ As soon as we switched to the cloud and our CFO ran the first report, he said, ‘Wow, it's so much faster!’ It was more secure, and we could focus on the functionality. At that point the product transitioned from a timesheet to a way to grow our business. It was really powerful for us.”

The Deltek Cloud environment is 10 times faster than AMT’s prior on-premises solution, delivering a better overall experience for every user. “By moving to the Deltek Cloud, we have been able to improve our processes to focus on innovative solutions for our clients. The transition to the cloud has been tremendously valuable for AMT. Our users are more engaged, they are expanding their use of the solution, and they believe in the power of Deltek,” states Strawser.

How the Cloud Powers Remote Operations

When the pandemic hit, AMT continued their work. They moved from 320 seats in 20 locations to 320 seats in home offices. Like so many other businesses, AMT moved to remote working, but the projects continued. AMT employees needed to be able to access their computers to work on their projects. “The challenge for me was how do you provide this experience at home so that the employees feel safe when you've done it for 20 years in the office,” said Strawser. “And a lot of things revolved around that. I looked at the board and the owners of our company and said, ‘Don't worry, we have 300+ offices now – everything's going to be fine.’”

According to Strawser, if AMT hadn’t been in the cloud, “It would've been a traffic jam that would have been uncontrollable. For us, moving to the cloud, really alleviated a big stress.” Previously AMT was underutilizing Deltek, missing out on much of the core functionality of the system. “Now all of our leaders who, when they log in, and I have a conversation with them, actually know the metrics on their dashboard,” stated Strawser.

Automatic Updates Save Time

Automatic updates help keep AMT employees informed. “When you open Deltek Cloud and changes or updates are coming, the notification comes right up. And it indicates, this is about to happen on Saturday. We're about to do this. Before we would announce that internally to all of our staff and ultimately they're calling us saying, ‘Why isn't our solution showing up? Why isn't it working?’ And I’d think, ‘Oh, you didn't read the email.’ But now there’s an alert so all employees are informed prior to, and at the time, of the updates.”

Why AEC Firms are Moving to the Cloud

Many AEC firms are moving to the cloud for convenience, added efficiencies, and time savings. Dispersed teams can effectively work from anywhere with 24/7/365 access and firms can focus on growing their business rather than maintaining systems, eliminating worries about data security, disaster recovery, and system failures. This helps drives success as 43% percent of companies that do not have a disaster recovery plan will go out of business in the aftermath of major data loss and 93% percent of companies that experience data loss and downtime for 10 or more days will file for bankruptcy within 12 months.

Learn more about AMT’s journey to the cloud in this Tech Talk, Leveraging the Deltek Cloud or take a look at the Deltek Cloud to see how it can help your firm power project and business success.