White House Custom Colour (WHCC), a Minnesota based company, is one of the leading photo processors in the USA. Focusing on serving the small, professional studio market segment, the company has enjoyed nearly twenty times growth in the past six years. Their current customer base is predominantly in North America but they are attracting an increasing number of customers from Europe and even extending out to Australia. “We have built a good reputation for quality and service at the right price,” said Mike Hanline, co-CEO of WHCC. “Over half of our new business comes from referrals which has enabled our continued growth”.

Growth is a wonderful thing but comes with it’s own challenges. After going to digital processing in 2000, the company  first expanded into an 11,000 sq. ft. facility in 2004 and in July, 2007 is in another new facility of over 47,000 sq. ft.Employee count has almost doubled in the last two years. The business is also cyclical, peaking in the main wedding and holiday periods. This means that the workforce varies causing other challenges. 

When they were planning the latest facility, Mike, Chris and the management team looked at both the expansion of operating technology and the IT infrastructure to support the business growth. Their existing network was primarily based on Cisco equipment but the communications was through an Avaya system. “ The Avaya was working well but it was just a phone system, commented Chris Hanline. “We needed redundancy and the ability to expand and do a lot more with the system.” “Our Cisco representative invited us to see their IP Communications demonstration and frankly we were immediately sold on the whole concept of using a complete Cisco system to provide us with both the functionality and the growth path for the future.” Chris and Mike agreed.