How One Commercial Printer Simplified Growth
Growth is the ultimate goal for almost every business. For many long-established organizations, the quickest path to that goal is through acquisition. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) open doors to new markets, new capabilities, and new revenue streams. However, for the IT teams responsible for integrating these new entities, the reality is often less about celebration and more about survival.
As new plants, offices, and operations are added to the corporate portfolio, IT departments often inherit a chaotic mix of legacy systems. It becomes a maze of disjointed networks, conflicting security tools, and stacks of carrier contracts that are difficult to track, let alone manage.
This was the precise situation facing a commercial printing company with more than 80 years of history. After eight decades of success, they were aggressively pursuing a strategy of expansion. But the pressure this put on their existing IT network and resources was threatening to stall their business ambition. They needed a way to modernize their infrastructure without overwhelming their lean staff or breaking the bank.
Here’s how they partnered with 11:11 Systems to turn a complex logistical nightmare into a streamlined, secure, and scalable operation.
The Challenge: Growing Pains and Technical Debt
When an organization acquires another company, they don’t just acquire the assets and the customer list; they acquire the technical debt. For this commercial printing company, the debt was significant.
Across their newly acquired entities, the IT landscape was fractured. They were running five different firewalls and networking technologies simultaneously. This lack of standardization meant that the security posture varied wildly from one location to another, creating potential vulnerabilities and massive inefficiencies.
Furthermore, connectivity was a headache. The company was juggling multiple telecom carriers across different regions. This created administrative “pain” for both the account teams, who had to decipher varied invoices, and the IT teams, who had to troubleshoot connectivity issues with different providers.
The internal IT team was lean. They were talented and dedicated, but they were stretched too thin. They were spending their days fighting fires and trying to keep the lights on across a disjointed network, leaving them with little capacity to focus on strategic initiatives or future growth.
They were in the process of evaluating network hardware procurement, but they realized that simply buying more boxes wouldn’t solve the core problem. They didn’t just need hardware. They needed a partner: a global provider that could bring everything together and handle connectivity, security, and management, end-to-end.
How 11:11 Stepped In
The company chose to partner with 11:11, seeking not just a vendor but a solution architect who could address their unique challenges. The partnership focused on four key areas that allowed the customer to simplify operations and prepare for continued expansion.
- Managed Firewall at Scale
Security is often the biggest risk during an acquisition. With five different technologies in play, the attack surface was inconsistent and difficult to monitor.
11:11 Systems implemented a managed firewall solution that centralized the company’s security posture. Crucially, this allowed the company to expand without adding headcount. By offloading the day-to-day security management—monitoring, patching, and threat detection—to the dedicated team at 11:11, the printing company instantly gained a mature security operations capability without the cost of hiring and training new internal staff.
- Supporting Customer-owned Hardware
One of the most common friction points in IT outsourcing is the “rip-and-replace” requirement. Many vendors force customers to scrap their existing hardware investments to fit the vendor’s specific stack.
11:11 took a different approach. The ability to manage a customer-owned firewall solution meant the printing company could keep their existing investments. They maintained their current hardware contracts and avoided unnecessary capital expenditure. This flexibility was vital for keeping the aggressive deployment on budget.
- Carrier-agnostic Connectivity
Managing internet service providers (ISPs) and telecom carriers is notoriously time-consuming. When you multiply that across dozens of locations with different regional providers, it becomes a full-time job.
11:11 Systems adopted a carrier-agnostic approach. This means 11:11 manages the relationships with the various telecom providers, but the customer gets a single interface for accountability. 11:11 centralized the connectivity management and billing. Instead of the accounting team processing dozens of disparate invoices every month, and the IT team calling different support lines for outages, everything was consolidated. This significantly reduced the complexity across all locations.
- A Global, Future-ready Partnership
The printing company wasn’t just fixing today’s problems. They were also planning for tomorrow’s acquisitions. This required a partner with the global reach to support their long-term M&A plans.
11:11 provided the necessary global infrastructure to support this growth. Furthermore, as the company’s security stack evolves, 11:11 is positioned to support latest-generation Fortinet infrastructure. This ensures that as the company grows, its security capabilities mature alongside it, rather than lagging behind.
The Results: Fast Deployment and Cost Control
Speed was a critical factor. M&A timelines are rarely generous, and the business needed the networks integrated quickly to realize the value of the acquisitions.
With an aggressive deployment schedule and a migration cost structure designed for efficiency, 11:11 helped the customer move quickly. The project did not derail budgets, and the migration caused minimal disruption to ongoing operations.
The result is a more consistent, secure, and manageable network. The IT team is no longer drowning in the administration of five different firewall technologies or chasing down telecom support tickets. They have a unified security posture that keeps up with new acquisitions, freeing them to focus on modernizing their business applications and driving value for their customers.
Why This Matters for Your Organization
The challenges faced by this company are not unique. They are the standard operating procedure for any business attempting to scale through acquisition in a digital-first economy.
If you look at your own IT environment, you might recognize the warning signs:
- Growing pains: Are you adding new locations or entities faster than your IT team can integrate them?
- Platform fatigue: Are you supporting multiple security and networking platforms that don’t talk to each other?
- Resource constraints: Is your internal IT team spending more time on maintenance and support tickets than on strategic innovation?
- Hardware lock-in: Are you looking for a partner who can work with your existing investments rather than forcing you to buy new hardware?
If you answered yes to any of these, it may be time to rethink your infrastructure strategy.
At 11:11 Systems, we help customers modernize, secure, and manage their critical data and applications. Technology should drive growth, not create obstacles. Whether you’re an established manufacturer or a new digital startup, the need for a secure, scalable, and resilient foundation is universal.
Your IT team shouldn’t have to navigate the maze alone. By offloading the complexity of connectivity and security management, you can return your focus to what truly matters: growing your business.
Building a Resilient Future
This commercial printing company’s journey from a fragmented network to a centralized, managed operation proves that legacy infrastructure doesn’t have to hold you back. With the right partner, you can turn your IT challenges into a competitive advantage.
If you are ready to simplify your security and connectivity while you grow, we are here to help.
