IT Directors Building Dependability in the Flourishing Technology Field at Scroggins Grear

IT Directors at Scroggins Grear strive to meet business needs with technological solutions to create a dependable company in the ever expanding world of Technology.

John A. Untener, IT Manager/Scroggins Grear

LEAD Magazine: Give me a brief description of what you do.

John Untener: I’m the IT Director. I manage the infrastructures and apps throughout the day. I work on meeting the business needs with the technological solutions. We do a lot of custom apps internally to help with business processes. We have three technical people and two administrative people. I have been here 15 years. I was at P&G for 10 years prior to being here.

LEAD Magazine: What are some of the technological victories you have experienced?

John Untener: Moving to a web platform with some of our services and moving more to cloud technology successfully. Not only making it work internally, but making it work for clients as well. Not just the technology, but the productivity gains we get from it. We are moving our accounting to a central web platform. We are working on building even more into that. Right now it is internal.

LEAD Magazine: What are some of the challenges?

John Untener: The younger generation – employees or clients – are so used to technology. Trying to provide that same type of experience in the corporate world is indeed a challenge. Integration with all of the different data and technology behind the scenes, trying to provide the same experience with security, etc.

Security, of course, is always a challenge. We are targeted highly as a CPA company. The main solution is education to my employees. Technology is not going to solve the problem. It is really the people and the processes they have. Security is a double-edged sword.

LEAD Magazine: Tell me about your vision for technology in this region.

John Untener: Technology is manageable. It is growing like crazy. It is like the medical field. One person cannot be an expert in every area. Netflix started playing with streaming. They had a vision for the future when technology was not available. Education and reading and understanding where the market is heading. Being part of The Circuit. Meeting with peers and seeing how they are addressing their needs. Things that seem impossible now, but what are they possibilities? Working with vendors, etc.

Vendors:

Interlink - Jason Wingert

Matt Schroecman, owner started that company six-ish years ago. Very big into cloud. Does a lot of cloud consulting and cloud roll outs.