Your network as a retail performance driver

Is your network ready for the cloud?

The Autonomic Networking System (ANS) the way to deliver WAN Governance

Featuring: Peter Schmidt, Ipanema Technologies

Cloud-ready networks - WAN Governance for cloud computing

Featuring:
David White - Senior VP Global Business Development, Ipanema Technologies

Ipanema joins 1nService
Ipanema aims to develop new revenue channels with U.S. networking companies and Service Providers to support its global presence and expansion in U.S.

Ipanema positioned as a Visionary in Leading Analyst firm's Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers
Evaluation based on completeness of vision and ability to execute

Ipanema Technologies named a Red Herring Global 100 Winner Ipanema extends WAN Governance to mobile users and small offices, ensuring fast and reliable application performance and maximizing productivity

	Béatrice Piquer-Durand Marketing Director Ipanema Technologies

The retail industry is highly competitive and retailers are under increasing pressure to contain costs. At the same time, retailers strive to deliver the best service, which means providing customers the right information when they need it.

Achieving retail goals to improve customer centricity, sales and operational efficiency depends on network performance, which directly impacts:

	Information flow throughout the enterprise,
	Fast, convenient checkout for customers,
	In-store kiosk availability for targeted promotions, information and self service purchases,
	Up-to-the-minute product information, pricing and accurate store inventories.

Retail IT has to become and enabler for growth and business flexibility. Did you know that network downtime can cost a retailer up to $100,000 an hour? Thierry Grenot, our CTO will address this question in more detail below.

Without global control of network performance, retailers lack real-time visibility into traffic mix and usage of enterprise applications. To support their many distributed sites (stores, warehouses, regional offices), and business functions (sales, marketing, operations, etc.), retailers must:

	Depend on disparate networks (MPLS, Internet, ADSL), devices, operating systems and standards,
	Coordinate network services with multiple vendors,
	Ensure application performance and response times, especially during peak business periods,
	Implement new applications and services for their dynamic business environment.

Ipanema's patented Autonomic Networking System provides global WAN Governance for retailers to ensure network performance is aligned with business objectives, therefore delivering a positive customer experience and driving higher sales.

Enjoy reading!

Béatrice

	LEROY MERLIN guarantees the quality of service delivered to customers with Ipanema Interview of Philippe Maurice, Technical Director Leroy Merlin France

The Leroy Merlin brand contributes to the adventure of improving housing and living conditions around the world. The multiple store locations of the group provide complimentary solutions to meet all customer needs.

CHALLENGE:

Leroy Merlin puts customer satisfaction at the heart of its business.

The performance of business applications on the network is critical for Leroy Merlin employees, who need tools to quickly respond to the diverse needs of their customers any time, regardless of the store location.

150 applications run on Leroy Merlin’s network operated by SFR, some of which, around 20, are critical to the company’s productivity. In particular, access to the online product catalog, order system, loyalty card program, inventory management, etc.

Any malfunction may have considerable negative impacts on revenue and productivity.

The regular increase of the network traffic over the past few years had led to a significant deterioration in application performance and therefore user satisfaction. The successive changes in network flow access to each site highlighted the need to build an evolving network on which the adjustments in terms of throughput and prioritization would be simple and fast.

To facilitate scalability, Leroy Merlin chose to equip its stores with fiber optics to improve response times and provide high availability superior to copper.

“To ensure productivity and efficiency, it was necessary and imperative to control and manage network usage and application performance in real-time, to provide optimal service to users. The overall visibility and real-time reports on application usage and performance and the ability to ‘prioritize’ the performance of critical business applications in all circumstances were decisive factors in choosing the Ipanema system," Philippe Maurice, Technical Director, Leroy Merlin France.

CHOOSING IPANEMA:

Ipanema was selected for its automatic management of application performance and high level reports delivering true WAN Governance and techniques for a real-time and proactive help desk. Network managers can share information with Leroy Merlin users and management, and control the quality of user experience through application performance indicators (Application Quality Score and MOS).

OBSERVED BENEFITS:

Enterprise scalability is controlled

With Ipanema, rolling out a new application is not left to chance. All applications are mapped and analyzed. Any new application will be granted bandwidth per session. The purpose of this is not to disrupt the use of other applications. The parameters are defined through dialogue with the applications referential – level of criticality, usage, and acceptable limits. The Ipanema system records these new criteria and dynamically adapts to guarantee application performance in accordance with pre-defined objectives by the IT team.

Guaranteed user satisfaction through application performance management

With Ipanema, Leroy Merlin is sure to guarantee the quality of experience for the end users of critical business applications, regardless of the traffic mix and applications used.

It is therefore possible to prioritize the flows independantly of the level of network saturation. This enables the same positive user experience regardless of the network traffic.

Manage the evolution of the network

With Ipanema, Leroy Merlin is constantly monitoring the evolution of each application in terms of throughput, number of sessions, hours of use, volume… The dashboards from the second to the year can predict the behavior of new applications before rolling them out. The IT department can provide accurate information to users on application performance.

Improve customer service and satisfaction

Beyond distributing home improvement products, Leroy Merlin helps customers in their decision making process by providing information, advice and services including sales and financing tools. These critical business applications on the network are essential to meet customers' expectations by helping them find the best solution to meet their needs. Customer wait time in the store is reduced, the purchasing process is simplified and as a result, customer satisfaction is improved.

	Thierry Grenot CTO Ipanema Technologies

Did you know that network downtime can cost a retailer $100,000 an hour? Béatrice for Ipanews: How can the network impair retail performance? Thierry Grenot: A retailer's network must be able to efficiently deliver business applications (PSS, PCI, in-store video, etc.) to many distributed sites (stores, warehouses, regional offices, etc.). Traffic congestion on the network, especially during peak business periods, can significantly slow application performance for end-users (brownouts) or interrupt application availability (blackouts). This can:

	Cost a retailer billions in lost revenue - up to $100,000 or more an hour (Gartner Dataquest).
	Cause long lines at checkouts, leading customers to abandon their purchases and potential customers to not even enter stores.
	Slow down supply chains, impacting store inventories.
	Diminish the effectiveness of customer loyalty, marketing and customer service programs.
	Reduce employee productivity and job satisfaction.
	Cripple a retailer's enterprise objectives to improve customer centricity, sales and operational efficiency.

BPD: How does Ipanema improve retail performance?
TG: Ipanema helps retailers to achieve core enterprise objectives of becoming more customer-centric, improving sales and controlling operational costs. Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System (ANS™) provides a retailer with much greater ability to control, accelerate and guarantee performance of business-critical applications accross their entire global retail network.

The Ipanema solution:
	Reduces the time customers must wait in check-out lines.
	Because POS systems aren't slowed down by the network, cashiers can process transactions faster.
	Helps the network to easily absorb new applications such as Personal Shopping System (PSS), Payment Card Industry (PCI) and in-store video, which retailers are implementing to improve the in-store customer experience.
	Accelerates data exchanges with suppliers for demand-driven supply chains, so store inventories can be synchronized with what consumers are buying.
	Enables end-users of business-critical systems to be more productive by not having to wait on the network to do their jobs.

BPD: How does Ipanema improve my retail network?
TG: Network performance is critical for retailers due to its dynamic nature. Ipanema's Autonomic Networking System gives total visibility and full control of all applications over global retail networks, private cloud and public cloud.

	Improves the performance of your applications over the network. Ipanema customers have eliminated up to 90% of their network-related application performance incidents and reduced time to repair incidents by up to 80%.
	Increases your global network capacity by a third or more. Retailers can easily add new sites without having to add bandwidth or do expensive network upgrades. Customers save up to 30% on network costs - by being able to delay purchasing additional bandwidth for two to three years.
	Enables you to roll out new retail applications without long, costly network reconfigurations. You can accelerate the implementation of new applications such as in-store video and upgrades to exisiting systems (POS, ERP, CRM, etc.) which improves the time to value for retailers and reduces their implementation costs.
	Reduces the IT effort to support a new store opening. When managing your global network with Ipanema, opening a new store from a network perspective means simply adding a new site to your network without having to increase bandwidth or do a major network upgrade.
	Saves money on network SLAs. Ipanema gives you complete visibility into what's happening on your network and what you actually need from service providers. On average, Ipanema customers save at least a year's worth of network budget over a three-year period, by not having to purchase bandwidth upgrades and through better monitoring of service provider SLAs.
	Saves money on IT labor costs. The Ipanema system frees IT staff occupied with network management to work on other projects. You save on labor costs by not having to add staff to clear your project backlog.