We’re Miles Motor Group
Miles is a group of vehicle dealerships located in several New Zealand cities. Across the group it employees over 300 people.
In Christchurch, the group holds franchises for Toyota, VW, Skoda, Renault, Nissan, Lexus and Kia.
Kent Distributors, an aftermarket car parts distributor, is also a part of the Christchurch operation.
In Timaru, Miles holds the VW and Skoda franchises.
Miles has an operation in Tauranga, where it trades as Pacific Toyota. Pacific Toyota also operates a branch in Whakatane.
Miles also has operates in Auckland, where it has the Mercedes, Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge franchises for the North Shore. Miles Limited operates a used car yard in Greenlane.
Our IT system has to grow with us
The Group provides a centralised IT infrastructure to handle finance, accounting, customer relationship management for all the sister companies. The company’s main servers are located in Christchurch.
Miles has a large telecommunications data requirement with branch to branch WAN links and a high reliance on Internet.
“As our business grows, as we take on more, the numbers of users also get bigger, so ensuring that the system’s speed of response is maintained will be a challenge, ensuring the infrastructure can cope with the amount of demand on it, is our main focus” said Tania Taylor, Miles Group Operations Manager.
“We recently shifted our Dealer Management System server into the cloud. This was our first move to the cloud.
“Being on site, the cloud tested our network and our connections, and we found that there were challenges such as how we should prioritize our traffic. Sometimes we would have speed issues on one site and it would be working on another site, yet both sites were set up exactly the same.
“From an IT perspective, each of our brands has to be kept separate; so for example our Toyota file systems are completely separated from the other brands.
“Our systems are audited by our franchisors to ensure that we are compliant with the franchise standards.”
Stratos is loyal and knowledgeable
“We originally started working with the Stratos team when they were with another company, which went into liquidation. They continued to support us through out that tumultuous period, and when they decided to set up their own operation, it was a no-brainer decision for us to go with them.
“Their loyalty, knowledge and expertise made it an easy decision; we still took our recommendation to our General Manager, and he had no hesitation in supporting it. We didn’t even look for competing proposals; there was no need to give that a thought. I think that that speaks of the trust we have in Stratos.
“Stratos is contracted to us for so many hours per month to oversee our infrastructure, advising on our improvements, whether we should be adopting new technologies and to mentor our IT administrator. We engage them to keep us ahead and to keep us moving with the times.
“On the advice of Stratos, we hired an IT administrator. They come in two mornings a week to mentor our IT administrator, and when he is away Stratos comes in and covers for him.”
“To anyone who is looking for an IT infrastructure expert, I’d say, “Definitely, yes, no hesitation, you need to get Stratos, they will look after your requirements and go the extra mile.”’ – Tania Taylor, Miles Motor Group
Stratos to the rescue
“For us, the biggest challenge was during the earthquake as we were in the Red Zone; we had no power; first thing the next morning after the earthquake, without waiting for us, they came in, picked up all the computers, hired a generator, hooked up everything to get the information out and set us up out at our Ilam branch. “More recently, our servers unusually went down in the middle of the night; we rang them and within half an hour they were there and got it resolved; they could have just told us what to do over the phone but we appreciated the special care they gave us. “They are fun, good humoured people, and well respected; even though Stratos has grown over the years, they still give us the same amount of attention as they did when they first started out. “Stratos say ‘yes’ and that’s the reason why they have such a loyal group of customers. “To anyone who is looking for an IT infrastructure expert, I’d say, ‘Definitely, yes, no hesitation, you need to get Stratos, they will look after your requirements and go the extra mile.'”
