the set up
This husband and wife rehab team started with a couple of multi-family buildings and an SUV as their office in the 1990's.
By the beginning of the new century, Restoration St. Louis would grow to become an 80+ employee enterprise expanding it's abilities and expertise into real estate, development, design, construction and property management.
FrontDoor, LLC - the entity which leases the apartments that Restoration St. Louis rehabs, is one of the city's largest providers of apartments to college students.
the problem
Utter chaos. Each of the different companies, (design, construction, development, leasing), were on desktop PCs ranging in age / operating system and served by a maxed out file server and moody email server located in the basement.
Each arm of the organization was handcuffed to to their own immediate work-group, barely able to exchange spreadsheet files, let-alone share contacts and email between entities.
Despite employing a full-time I.T. manager and expensive, contract management services, they were plagued by regular crashes and productivity zapping incompatibility problems.
In 2006, severe storms caused extended, city-wide power outages which did more than just kill the lights. Their websites, phone system and connection to each other and their hundreds of tenants vanished.
Once the power came back on, they called Avatara.
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