Bouncing back from a lightning strike with Dropbox Business

When the power goes out at production facilities across Canada, many call on Saskatoon-based electrical contracting firm CEL Electric to get up and running again.

But in 2014, lightning struck, literally: one of CEL’s on-premises data servers was zapped, frying expensive hardware and six months worth of work. “It was our wake-up call to make a change to the way we managed our information,” says Shaun Unger, VP of Corporate Affairs. CEL turned to Dropbox Business to help keep its information safe in the cloud. The move has transformed the way CEL secures its data and serves its customers.

Before Dropbox, there was no simple way for employees and customers to collaborate on large documents like building layouts or equipment manuals. “We would break files up into smaller pieces to work around email attachment limitations,” says Mark Karr, Project Manager. Now, engineers and designers collaborate on facility drawings in real time using shared folders. Supervisors can access the latest version of layouts while in the field with the Dropbox mobile app.

Instead of emailing customers with key assets as attachments, project managers can send one Dropbox link containing everything from concepts to permits. “Everything is centralized, no matter where our team is based,” Unger says. “There’s no doubt Dropbox makes us more productive.”

And while there’s always a chance lightning may strike twice, with Dropbox Business, all of CEL’s files are safe. “It’s been a huge relief, knowing that 2014 won’t happen again because we have Dropbox Business,” Unger says.

Check out our case study to learn more about how CEL Electric uses Dropbox Business for secure collaboration.