Education

Learning Care Group Modernizes National Data Exchange by Replacing Legacy SFTP with Files.com

Education / Early-Childhood · Novi, Michigan, USA · 24,000 employees

Learning Care Group (LCG) is one of North America’s largest early-childhood education providers, operating over 1,100 schools across the U.S. and abroad. Headquartered in Novi, Michigan, LCG serves over 160,000 children and employs around 24,000 educators.

Overview

LCG operates a portfolio of well-known brands including La Petite Academy, Childtime, and Everbrook Academy, and has run early-childhood learning programs for over five decades. The company is migrating its core workloads to Microsoft Azure to support continued expansion and maintain its data-driven operations, which run everything from staffing and payroll to curriculum development and family communications.

Challenges

LCG’s legacy file-transfer infrastructure was no longer suitable for the scale and security requirements of a growing enterprise:

Aging, self-hosted platform. LCG’s on-premises server, running a legacy product from SMA Technologies, sat on an outdated virtual machine and had not been updated since 2022. The server lacked enterprise-grade security certifications, vendor support, and the scalability required for a 20,000-employee organization.
Compliance and risk exposure. As a childcare provider handling sensitive employee and family data, LCG had to meet strict SOC-2 and cybersecurity standards. The legacy SMA Technologies solution could not satisfy the company’s audit requirements or vendor-risk-assessment needs, which exposed the company to regulatory and security risks.
Heavy IT overhead. Maintaining the legacy server consumed significant engineering resources and diverted attention from more strategic initiatives. Disaster recovery planning was also complicated by the limitations of the outdated system.
Integration bottlenecks. Over 100 automated MFT jobs moved data between Oracle Cloud HCM, the corporate data warehouse, and external vendors. Adding or changing partners was slow, error-prone, and inefficient.
Cloud-first mandate. The infrastructure team wanted a cloud-based solution that integrated with Azure, supported single sign-on (SSO) via Microsoft Entra ID, and offered future-ready features like geo-blocking and automated user provisioning.

Solution

After a 60-day evaluation, LCG selected Files.com as its secure, cloud-native Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution.

Secure, cloud-native platform. Files.com replaced the aging server with a cloud-native MFT platform, eliminating all on-prem server maintenance and providing web, desktop, and API access for file exchanges.
SOC-2 certification and granular controls. Files.com’s SOC-2-certified platform met LCG’s strict security requirements with features like geo-blocking, U.S. data residency, two-factor authentication (2FA), and detailed audit logs.
Native Azure integration. Files.com integrated directly with Azure for storage, identity management (via Entra ID for SSO), and log streaming to Microsoft Sentinel, fitting LCG’s cloud-first strategy.
Low-code automation. Files.com’s low-code automation and metadata tagging let engineers replace hundreds of SSIS jobs and build new workflows faster.

Results

Risk eliminated. The unsupported legacy server was retired and SOC-2 compliance gaps were closed, putting LCG in position to meet audit requirements ahead of the next compliance cycle.
IT resources redeployed. Infrastructure engineers no longer maintain or patch SFTP servers, and that time now goes to other Azure projects and more strategic IT initiatives.
Faster partner onboarding. External vendors connect in minutes via a secure, branded portal. Internal teams report that the new system is “miles ahead” of the old platform.
Scalable for growth. LCG can add new brands, schools, and data integrations without additional storage capacity or major infrastructure redesigns.
Future-ready platform. Files.com features like Azure Sentinel logging, SCIM-based user provisioning, and automated workflows let LCG scale beyond file transfers into broader data-exchange use cases.

“External vendors connect in minutes via a secure, branded portal.”

— Learning Care Group IT

Conclusion

By replacing its aging on-premises file-transfer system with Files.com, Learning Care Group modernized its data exchange process, reduced security risks, and improved IT efficiency. The company is now better equipped to handle regulatory compliance, onboard new partners faster, and support its continued expansion.