Booths
This thriving supermarket chain has succeeded by putting customers first. When it needed its network restructured, Booths found a partner with the same approach..
Booths
Booths now has its own manufacturing, distribution and maintenance facilities, all run from an award-winning central office in Ribbleton, Preston, with a customer experience that is second to none. They know that its customer experience sets them apart. The company focuses on getting to know its customers to exceed their expectations, without compromising on service or quality. Perhaps that’s why Booths looked to a provider with the same customer approach as themselves when it reviewed its corporate network.
The challenge
Booths relies on a traditional ‘hub and spoke’ network used primarily to transfer EPOS data from each store back to the central office. The central office connected to the host network via an Ethernet solution, with the supermarkets connecting through ADSL. Unfortunately, core outages on the host network were responsible for bringing down a large number of stores, sometimes for substantial periods of time. As the host network was managed by a third party, fixing these issues wasn’t always a quick and easy process.
What’s more, Booths backup solution could only serve two sites simultaneously, it was clunky and required a manual reboot before it started, making it extremely challenging to manage across all stores. The whole approach was time consuming and ineffective, and meant that the Network Manager didn’t have time to spend on new projects that would positively impact the business.
The Solution
Zen understood that Booths needed a highly scalable and resilient network to address its backup issues, and wanted a closer working relationship with its chosen technology partner. Like Booths, Zen prides itself on a customer focused approach, and on providing a quality of service and support that is second to none. “Its approach at pre-sales and design stages gave us confidence in the solution, meaning less time was wasted,” notes Daniel Johns.
Zen recommended an IP VPN solution to provide Booths with a private, fully-managed Wide Area Network with complete visibility, advanced security and complete performance control.
Booths’ individual stores now connect to Zen’s state-of-the-art Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) network through ADSL connections, they also have 3G wireless backup for resilience and the central office connects through a 10MB Ethernet solution.
The Benefits
The vastly improved reliability of the revised network has made a significant difference to Booths. In the past, any issues with back office processes were routinely attributed to poor connectivity between store and central office. Now, Daniel Johns explains, this isn’t the case. “It’s generally the last thing people check or think of given the reliability. What’s more, this robust connectivity has given stores the confidence to embrace new web-based solutions for stock ordering and replenishment.”
The new backup system with is much easier to manage, while the robust disaster recovery system provides a new level of resilience, both giving Daniel Johns the time and peace of mind to focus on new projects that could help Booths operate even more efficiently. Wherever this takes Booths in the future, he knows that he can rely on Zen. “The support from Zen has always been excellent” he adds.
