Customer Success Story:
HKS accelerates global file transfer for large-scale projects, including Cowboys Stadium

“We can transfer files electronically, we can track them as well and provide all the reporting information back to the customer, so there is a lot of value in that.”

Jack Clark
Vice President Business Systems
HKS, Inc.

A leader among global architecture firms, HKS, Inc., employs 1,400 professionals in 24 offices around the world and has completed projects in over 1,500 cities in 92 countries. HKS is recognized for its ability to create buildings of distinction through its unique design process which involves extensive communication with its clients and collaboration among the company’s network of professionals located around the globe.

Challenge

Efficient global communication is essential to HKS’s business model. They must be able to securely send large files across multiple platforms around the world to clients, contractors and staff. Like much of the architectural industry, however, HKS used FTP to send these files. They found FTP to be inconsistent, restrictive and lacking of the fundamental monitoring, security and internal controls that are necessary in a communication-based company. Files were often lost, deleted or accessed improperly from the FTP servers with no means of tracking delivery. These issues could easily cause completion deadlines to be missed and profit lost. Facing these problems and FTP-related cost overruns, HKS began to look for an alternative solution.

Solution

HKS chose Thru to replace FTP. Thru’s cloud-based service includes integrations with Microsoft Outlook and Salesforce to allow files or folders of any size to be securely sent without any special training or assistance required from the IT staff. Files are easily downloaded by the recipient, and they remain completely secure.

Since files and folders can be stored securely in the Thru Cloud, users can securely and easily access files from anywhere at any time. Management is also greatly simplified since the administrator has the ability to effortlessly set or modify who has access to different files, as well as to track and audit information on who has received what files.

“Getting things turned around in a timely expedited fashion is priceless.”

Jack Clark
Vice President Business Systems
HKS, Inc.

Results

Initially, Thru was deployed for 100 project team members. The team members substantially increased productivity since they could quickly and effortlessly collaborate on projects having multiple large files. A lot of rework and duplication of files was eliminated because team members were updated with all change requests and project amendments in real-time, without risk of leaks, data loss or compromise to intellectual property. The Thru cloud allows files to be sent around the globe in a fraction of the time as with FTP with no failure.

With these significant improvements, return on investment was achieved so quickly that HKS soon replaced all FTP project servers with an enterprise-wide deployment in the Thru Cloud. Now over 1,500 users in various international locations transfer files with Thru, which allows managers to share, organize and tightly control access of data and emails project-by-project for the first time. Because of Thru, HKS has greatly advanced efficient global communication.