Rebuilding IT From the Ground Up for a Northern Virginia Food Manufacturer
- 12 minutes ago
- 5 min read
No antivirus, end-of-life servers, and lost admin credentials: how Pronto Tech took an unmanaged manufacturer to a fully modernized, professionally managed IT environment.
A growing wholesale food manufacturer with a factory in Northern Virginia, with no internal IT staff, came to Pronto Tech after their previous IT support went dark. Their existing arrangement was already more nominal than active — nobody was proactively monitoring their environment, patching systems, or paying attention to what was actually running underneath the business — but the real breaking point was access: that provider held the only administrative credentials to the company's own systems and went unresponsive when the client needed them back, cutting the business off from its own accounts. What our discovery uncovered was more serious than a typical “under-supported” gap.
The Challenge
Our IT assessment found an environment that had gone effectively unmanaged for years, despite having some support in place:
No antivirus or endpoint protection on any device — every workstation and server was fully exposed to malware, ransomware, and phishing
8 end-of-life workstations — a mix of Windows 7 (out of support since 2020) and Windows 10 machines past their end-of-support date, both no longer receiving security updates
An end-of-life virtualization host running the hypervisor behind both the company's line-of-business software and its backups, with no further security patches available
No documented backup for the database behind their production and inventory management software — a server failure would have meant losing order history and customer records outright
No administrative control over their own systems — the previous IT support had never handed over the domain registrar login or the Microsoft 365 Global Admin credentials, so no one at the company could access or manage their own core accounts. When the client tried to reach that provider to get access back, calls and emails went unanswered and the provider became unreachable altogether, leaving the business effectively locked out of its own infrastructure
No email security across the company's mailboxes, inconsistent email clients, and an aging, unmanaged network built on consumer-grade and end-of-life hardware
Business-critical exposure, not just internal risk — the same line-of-business system that had no verified backup also handled the automated order and invoicing data exchanged with the company's largest retail and distribution customers. A failure wouldn't have just been an internal IT problem; it would have disrupted order accuracy and invoicing with the accounts the business depended on most
In short: the business was running on borrowed time, with no visibility into its own risk and no one truly accountable for fixing it.
The Solution
Before any modernization work could start, the access problem had to be solved. Pronto Tech worked with the client to recover control of their domain registrar and Microsoft 365 tenant from scratch, and rebuilt IT documentation that had never existed anywhere the client could reach it.
As part of every engagement — not a one-time fix for this client alone — Pronto Tech also sets up break-glass accounts. These are emergency administrator credentials, separate from the accounts used for day-to-day IT work, that are created for the client and then stored securely by the client themselves rather than by us or any support vendor. They're meant to stay untouched under normal circumstances and only be used in specific situations: if a support provider becomes unreachable, if someone with admin access leaves the company unexpectedly, or if a primary account gets locked out or compromised. We walk every client through exactly when and how to use theirs, so access to their own infrastructure never again depends on one vendor, or one person, being reachable.
With access restored, Pronto Tech proposed and executed a focused six-week modernization engagement:
Workstation replacement — all end-of-life machines replaced with business-grade Windows 11 Pro hardware, including full data migration and application reinstall
Microsoft 365 Business Premium upgrade — all licenses consolidated onto a single premium tier, adding built-in antivirus, advanced email security, and device management in place of a mismatched set of lower-tier plans
Full device management and security deployment — every workstation enrolled in Microsoft Intune, with Defender for Business endpoint protection, BitLocker encryption, enforced password policies, and remote wipe capability all configured for the first time
ERP cloud migration — the production and inventory system migrated off the aging local server and into the ERP vendor's cloud platform, eliminating the single point of failure that had put years of business data at risk. Fernando Gutierrez, our Systems Engineer, built and verified the database copies, managed the upload to the cloud provider, and served as the day-to-day liaison between the client and the ERP vendor throughout the cutover so the client never had to manage that relationship directly
Network infrastructure replacement — the consumer-grade router, switch, and access points replaced with a centrally managed, business-grade network stack, giving the business real visibility and control over its own network for the first time
Our field technician handled the onsite side of the engagement throughout — physically swapping out end-of-life workstations, running and terminating new network cabling, and installing and configuring the new router, switch, and access points in place — while the rest of the team handled the account, software, and cloud-side work in parallel.
“Moving their database to the cloud meant building the copies, coordinating the upload with the provider, and verifying everything at each step before the old server came down. We stayed in the middle between the client and the ERP vendor the whole way through, so they only had to deal with one point of contact instead of two.” — Fernando Gutierrez, Systems Engineer, Pronto Tech
The Outcome
With modernization complete, the company moved directly into an ongoing Managed IT Services partnership with Pronto Tech, covering every user in the company:
Unlimited remote helpdesk support during business hours, with priority response for critical issues
24/7 monitoring and automated patching across every endpoint
Full Microsoft 365 administration, including email security and compliance configuration
Ongoing network monitoring and management
Backup monitoring, vendor coordination, and incident response
Quarterly technology reviews and strategic IT planning (vCIO services)
What started as a company with no real IT oversight now has 24/7 monitoring, enforced security policies, verified backups, and a technology partner accountable for keeping all of it running — at a predictable monthly cost far below the cost of a full-time in-house IT hire.
The partnership has stayed active well past go-live. Day-to-day IT issues now go through Pronto Tech's Help Desk, just like any other managed services client — that's the first line of support for anything a user runs into. Fernando has continued in the liaison role he took on during the migration for anything that needs to go beyond first-line support, working directly with the ERP vendor's support team to resolve post-migration performance issues, alongside coordinating hardware suppliers and arranging third-party repairs for office equipment rather than leaving the client to chase down vendors themselves.
As the business has continued to grow and add staff, our field technician has continued providing onsite support as needed — installing new workstations, running additional network cabling, and handling network hardware upgrades in person rather than over a remote session — so growth never has to wait on a separate project or an extra scramble. It's just the environment scaling along with the company.
Why This Matters
This engagement is a clear example of a pattern we see often: a growing business outgrows informal, ad hoc technology support long before anyone notices the risk that's accumulated in the meantime. The fix isn't usually complicated — it's a matter of someone taking a real inventory, prioritizing what's actually urgent, and building a plan to close the gaps in a defined timeframe.
If your business has never had a real IT assessment, or you're not entirely sure who has administrative control over your own systems, contact us today — that's exactly where we'd start.
