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How Options Medical Weight Loss Opened 20 Clinics, Including 12 in 24 Months, Without Hiring an IT Department
Between 2018 and 2024, Edward Technology deployed the complete IT for twenty Options Medical Weight Loss clinics: computers, printers, WiFi, network hardware, and Microsoft 365. The company grew from its Chicago South Loop headquarters into a multi-state operation ranked by Newsweek among America's best weight loss clinics. Each clinic went live in about one working day on-site. Every location opened on schedule.
20
clinics deployed
8 hrs
on-site per clinic
12
opened in 24 months
0
servers anywhere
200
workstations
0
missed openings
The challenge: a new clinic every two months
Through 2023 and 2024, Options opened a clinic roughly every eight weeks, each needing ten workstations, printers, secure WiFi, and twelve staff ready to work on day one. Opening dates were fixed by leases and marketing campaigns. IT was not allowed to be the bottleneck. Hiring an internal IT department for a company in permanent expansion mode would have meant recruiting for a job that changed every eight weeks.
The method: build every clinic twice
Every clinic was built first in our Elmhurst office. Each machine imaged, software installed, printers configured, network gear prepared: days of careful work done ahead of time, off the critical path. Then the on-site day. With construction, wiring, and internet completed by the buildout crews before we arrived, our team walked in and installed the PCs, printers, WiFi, and network hardware in roughly eight hours. Staff walked into a working clinic.
When the plan changed, the IT kept up
When Options needed inventory and IT staging capacity on a last-minute decision, the larger-than-normal Naperville location absorbed the job as a storage facility. And in the final year, Options began renting temporary spaces beside buildouts to sign members up before opening day, so we stood up pop-up offices ahead of the permanent installs and tore them down after. A rollout plan that cannot bend is not a plan. Ours bent and never broke.
The results: six years of expansion, zero IT hires
Twenty on-schedule openings. A known IT cost and a repeatable checklist per location, a roadmap the company could budget from and adjust when a site needed more or less. Expansion across state lines without ever hiring internal IT. Predictability was the product, and it shipped twenty times.
Planning your own expansion?
One location or twenty, the method is the same: stage ahead, install in a day, run it on one platform. Call 847.737.8111 or start with the complimentary onsite evaluation.
