Mercer Transportation Story

Mercer Transportation is changing lanes to deliver digital transformation

At a Glance

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Goals and Challenges

• Backfilling IBM iSeries expertise as talent pool shrinks
• Streamlining management, backups and cloud admin
• Maintaining uptime for critical application, orchestrating 2,500 contracted drivers every day

Solutions and Impact

• IBM iSeries admin and services, freeing them to focus on modernization and customer experience
• Gold standard backup and disaster recovery
• Colocation and Cloud Hosting of critical infrastructure

Racksquared’s IBM iSeries services, cloud hosting and backup help keep 2,500 trucks on the road and on time

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A new IT Director arrives, with efficiency on his mind

Donnie R. Masden knows a thing or two about optimizing complex systems with IT.

Years before he became Technology Director at Mercer Transportation – a national trucking operator based in Kentucky — he brought his IT chops to the Louisville Metro Police Department. Starting out as a police officer, he quickly became known as the “go to tech guy,” leveraging his skills into a full-time role overseeing the IT operations across the precinct and beyond. He eventually helped envision and deliver state and nation-wide initiatives to bring policing into the 21st century using modern digital technologies.

He hung up the badge in 2018, but he just couldn’t stay away from IT. In 2020, he came out of retirement to join Mercer. And while trucking is a far different world than policework, Masden sees his new role in much the same light.

“I see my role as an orchestrator,” he says. “I facilitate and manage expectations so we can use technology to support our customer’s business needs, without getting in the way of operations for the end user.”

Lightening the IT load with Racksquared’s IBM iSeries Cloud Services

When Masden joined, Mercer’s outgoing Technology Director had been serving as the in-house iSeries admin — an IT skill set that Masden didn’t posses. It’s also a skill set that is increasingly difficult and expensive to backfill, as the IBM iSeries admin talent pool continues to shrink. But Masden didn’t see this skill gap as a roadblock — he saw it as an opportunity to excel. That’s when he started exploring an expanded relationship with Mercer’s long-time IT partner, Racksquared.

“Racksquared provides the expertise I was looking for. With them, I can free up my team to focus on differentiating and innovating our business,” he says. “They also fulfill all our needs without us having to hire another person.”

Since 2018, the transportation company has relied on Racksquared for a variety of cloud and professional services, including backups, disaster recovery and co-location for its core iSeries application and Windows environments. With Masden’s arrival, Racksquared began providing IBM iSeries management, which includes around-the-clock support, proactive maintenance, and regular upkeep, backups and administration.

Cruising toward digital transformation — and peace of mind

Supported by Racksquared, Mercer is doubling-down on efforts to streamline operations, protect against disaster and improve the experiences of thousands of independent drivers, employees and clients.

Take for example the company’s core iSeries application, dubbed MercerWEB. The web-based portal provides vital shipping, delivery and regulatory data to contracted drivers and clients. If that system were to crash, Mercer would need to hit the brakes on its 2,500 contracted drivers, delivering thousands of shipments to hundreds of customers across North America. Thanks to Racksquared, Masden can avoid interruptions and, if disaster does strike, get trucks back on route in hours — instead of days or even weeks.

Racksquared’s daily management, admin tasking and round-the-clock support also frees Masden’s team to drive forward several strategic projects that will differentiate them in the market. He says his team is currently focused on delivering a series of modern, mobile-first solutions — designed to get their contracted drivers the most useful information, in the less intrusive, disruptive ways possible.

Without having to worry about a catastrophic backup failure or ransomware attack, Masden’s even been able to catch a good night’s sleep every now and then. He thanks Racksquared for the peace of mind and knows if there ever is an urgent need for support, Racksquared can be counted on.

“I tout Racksquared highly. They go above and beyond in several ways and when I call them, I get a response. To me, it feels like they make our concerns, their concerns,” he says.