Background
CrossFit Durable is the leading Crossfit gym operator in Gainesville VA. CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for hundreds of beginner, elite and professional athletes. Everyone’s path at CrossFit Durable will be slightly different depending on their current fitness capacity, goals and preferences. We offer one-on-one coaching and group classes along with a variety of specialty programs.
Our most successful clients utilize a combination of individualized coaching and program designs to fine tune their mechanics, address specific deficiencies and attain unique performance goals with the spirit, community and camaraderie that naturally develops in our group and individual coaching sessions.
Challenge
When opening a new business there are many challenges. For one, the main challenges we ran into was supporting a distributed network of gyms with a variety of computers and configurations. Configuring each new computer, which would include MS Outlook would require a significant amount of time and money from CrossFit Durables’ IT department. Additionally, our location has a variety of computers each with different configurations which made supporting the business even more difficult. We also recognized the cost associated with this type of IT structure and when starting a new business this can become cumbersome.
Solution
When CrossFit Durable first looked at Google Workspace, though it was clearly appealing from a potential cost saving perspective, the technical team had some concerns. The first concern was what would be required to actually transition the company and the second was whether or not it would be possible to make a smooth transition. To facilitate the transition, CrossFit Durable reached out to Suitebriar, Inc., a Google Cloud Premier Partner to learn more on how to best implement Google Workspace into our environment.
Suitebriar, Inc. has a great team with excellent experience. They took us step-by-step through the transition process, advised and supported us,” said Scott McAlee, VP of Development and Operations at CrossFit Durable. “Suitebriar, Inc. then provided us with a series of web-based trainings to help our employees through their transition starting with Google Mail, Calendar and then Google Docs. Throughout the process, Suitebriar, Inc.’s team were always available for us which was a great resource for our IT Department to help troubleshoot any issues and help us in defining and documenting best practices.”
“Nick Connolly with Suitebriar, Inc. helped make our company’s transition to Google Workspace a success, giving us the peace of mind that our IT department would not have to be concerned about our distributed networks as our business grows,” states McAlee.
Suitebriar, Inc. accomplished this by allowing our team to become very comfortable with using Google Workspace. They carried us through a seamless, two-day migration so our work didn’t skip a beat while our technology got a major makeover. Their consulting staff developed new and exciting ways for our workflow processes. For example, instead of using hard copies to keep track of our employees, customers and programs we now use Google drive and docs to allow our workflow to be more holistic. Another benefit working with Suitebriar, Inc. is their response time and knowledgeability to any questions or issues that arose. By executing the above, Suitebriar, Inc. gave CrossFit Durables’ team the confidence to take on a company-wide initiative like transitioning to Google Workspace.
Results
When asked to comment on the results of the transition McAlee states, “We have never looked back and have no regrets.” Our company is just starting out and growing, and our employees have adapted readily to Google Workspace the web-based solution; staff members only need an Internet connection and a browser to complete the majority of their work. Though the web-based trainings highlighted how Google Docs can be used for collaboration, CrossFit Durable has found that the intuitive nature of document sharing has organically contributed to increased and improved collaboration internally. Additionally, the technical team experienced a considerably decrease in software-related support requests and has also been able to modify computer requirements to save money on purchasing new computers and software. According to McAlee, “these modification have resulted in a 60% reduction in overall IT spending.”