Customer Profile – Food Manufacturer
Founded in 1986, this manufacturer produces wholesome, nutritious, and tasty breakfast products for some of the largest food brands. The company has continually grown by expanding its distribution and adding more brand names and co-manufacturing arrangements. The organization produces frozen breakfast pastry products for distribution throughout the US, Canada, and Mexico, through two major manufacturing facilities which are SQF 2000 Level 2 Certified. Its SQF Program is recognized by retailers and food service providers that require rigorous, credible food safety management systems.
Business Challenges
A food manufacturer supporting some of the largest U.S. breakfast brands was struggling with the limitations of its aging infrastructure, specifically:
- Growth Limitations: The company was eager to continue its rapid expansion and capitalize on future growth opportunities across North America. Yet, it had already outgrown its local managed service provider’s capabilities.
- Performance Issues: The manufacturer’s outdated IT infrastructure didn’t provide the reliability and performance its staff needed to work effectively.
- Legacy Migration Obstacles: The customer planned to transition from a legacy in-house ERP system to a cloud-based solution, but lacked the stable and resilient network to support it.
The Globalgig Solution
The manufacturer chose Globalgig to design and implement a network infrastructure that would support its digital transformation. The Globalgig design and engineering team conducted staff interviews, a network evaluation, and an IT assessment, visiting the company’s production facilities, data centers, and corporate headquarters to engage with key stakeholders. Based on an analysis of the network’s current state and risks, the team recommended a Cisco Viptela SD-WAN solution to provide the stability and resilience the customer required and deliver a high return on the ERP capital investment.¹ While primarily focused on network health and performance, the Globalgig team uncovered additional areas of improvement and incorporated the recommendations into its solution design.
The Solution Components Included:
- Using advanced monitoring tools and data analytics to streamline the network design process
- Recommending a path forward that fixed gaps and ensured business continuity
- Designing and implementing an SD-WAN solution that combined lower-cost dedicated Internet access service with broadband and wireless connectivity for failover and path diversity
- Integrating the new solution into the existing managed service provider, the private cloud ERP vendor, and Microsoft Azure during the first phase of the migration²
- Eventually migrating the manufacturer from the managed service provider solution to Microsoft Office 365 and Azure cloud services
- Deploying a hosted PBX service to replace the customer’s legacy voice system
Globalgig also served as the customer’s network aggregator, providing a more streamlined service experience, with both wired and wireless services delivered via a single, dependable partner.
Results – A Robust, High-Performance Network That Scales with the Company
The food manufacturer gained strong bottom-line benefits by partnering with Globalgig, including:
- New, optimized SD-WAN platform designed hand-in-hand with key company stakeholders
- The network redundancy and resilience that are essential to supporting cloud-based applications, like its new ERP system
- A better experience for end users who employ a wide range of business applications
- Lower monthly costs for networking
- Greater network reliability, with broadband and wireless connectivity providing better failover capabilities and network path diversity
- More flexibility in deploying other applications, including the new hosted PBX system that reduced voice system costs and improved the caller experience
Now, the customer has the essential foundation to support its continued expansion and provide its employees with the tools they need to work efficiently and effectively.