Overview
Country:
South Africa
Industry:
Distribution
Customer Profi le
BSi Steel Limited is a publicly listed steel company headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is involved in the sourcing, processing, stocking and distribution of carbon steel products across South Africa and other African countries.
Business Situation
BSi Steel was facing serious network connectivity challenges. All its branches across South Africa, and further afi eld in Africa, needed to connect to a centralised ERP system in order to operate effi ciently. Slow and unreliable network connectivity was causing bottlenecks, leading – among other things - to loss of sales, customer service delays and tardy invoice generation. Frequent down time and constant network latency were severely hampering business operations.
Solution
EOH Network Solutions consolidated BSi Steel’s network connectivity onto a single MPLS network. Connectivity is now via Diginet and fi bre, where branches had previously been relying on wireless connections. This also had the effect of reducing the number of connectivity providers that BSi was reliant on, giving the company a single point of provision and contact for all its network services.
Benefi ts
400% improvement in network performance and reliability Branch-level network capacity doubled
Latency and data packet loss at record low levels
Improved branch effi ciency and customer service delivery Branch user experience signifi cantly improved
Other network technologies have now become possible (e.g. VoIP and Hosted PBX systems)
BSi Steel Limited is
a publicly listed steel
company headquartered in
Johannesburg, South Africa.
BSi Steel resolves
network problems
with EOH Network
Solutions.
About the company
The company was established in 1985, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (Alternative Exchange) in 2007 and has grown into a R3-billion turnover company. It has a signifi cant geographical footprint across South Africa. Central to its operations is a processing and warehousing division in the south of Johannesburg from where it distributes products across the country and into Africa.
It has max-merchant divisions in Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg, servicing the construction and manufacturing sectors in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, respectively. A Klipriver facility houses specialised steel product divisions and a smaller branch exists in Richards Bay.
It also has branches across 6 African countries and is intending to expand further into West and East Africa.
BSI Steel’s ICT Platform is based on a centralised model, which has to serve all the company’s facilities and branches across its large geographical footprint. Robust network connectivity is thus of paramount importance to successful business operations.
Network connectivity problems became particularly acute in 2011-2012, when the company opened seven branches across Johannesburg; two of which were on the outskirts, in Brits and Klerksdorp. These facilities, its original major facilities in Johannesburg South and Pietermaritzburg, and its branches in African countries all required network connectivity to its central data centre in Klipriver.
The company describes its network connectivity at this time as “an absolute disaster”. The ICT department had become a choking point for loss of sales, primarily due to a large amount of system down time. At the very best of times, systems were slow, with a huge number of daily disconnections and extremely high latency levels.
The situation had further impacts on company operational effi ciency: customer service was frequently delayed and invoices could often not be generated on time. When the network was down, work would have to be done manually, resulting in stock discrepancies, as central data could not be updated in real time.
Branch employees were frustrated, not only by the diffi culties that they faced in their daily tasks, but by having to spend too much time placating customers.
To try and solve the problem, BSi Steel invested in network optimisation devices, which were rolled out to all branches in an attempt to improve capacity. Unfortunately no meaningful or tangible benefi ts accrued, due to the underlying network infrastructure problems.
This also had the effect of
consolidating BSi Steel’s
network service provision into
a single point of accountability
and contact for all its network
services.
EOH Network Solutions addressed the core problems of network capacity, latency and reliability by consolidating all BSi Steel’s networking services into a single MPLS network. The branches’ wireless connections were replaced with Diginet and fi bre connections.
The challenge of cost-effectively managing the network traffi c from the African sites back to South Africa, was addressed through a redundant interconnect between the Astrium landing station in Telemedia in Rivonia and the BSi Steel / EOH MPLS core network.
EOH Network Solutions also took a holistic approach and a long view of BSi Steel’s network needs, by future-proofi ng the network design.
It approached the solution and implementation not only from the perspective of meeting the immediate challenges, but also in a way that takes account of the company’s future business objectives.
Because the MPLS network offers exponentially more capacity, it allows BSi Steel to take advantage of other network technologies to meet its business objectives. The company now has the network capability to implement cloud solutions (virtualisation, virtual desktops, private cloud infrastructure and SaaS), VoIP and Hosted PBX, disaster recovery solutions, and email fi ltering and archiving services.
Since BSi Steel switched over
to its EOH MPLS network
in March 2013, network
connectivity has improved by
400%.
The company experiences excellent levels of uptime, with latency and packet loss at record low levels.
Crucially, branch network connectivity has been completely stabilised. Employees can now get back to customers on time, can invoice on time, and can work far more effi ciently. Because down time has been virtually eradicated, work no longer has to be done manually and locally – the central ERP system can be kept constantly up to date, eliminating stock discrepancies.
Moving the branches away from wireless connectivity to Diginet and fi bre has further improved each branch’s network performance and reduced latency. Network capacity at branch level has doubled, with a last-mile
link that now delivers 2MBps speed (compared to the previous 1MBps). The fi bre connection is also more weather-resistant than copper wire connectivity.
The MPLS network has enabled BSi Steel to implement backup technologies at every site, which it previously did not have. Redundant connections to these sites (fi bre and DSL) provide failover protection. It has also allowed the company to begin planning a centralised PBX/VoIP system, which is only possible now that the company has the necessary network reliability and stability.
CASE STUDY
Sales losses curtailed
The massive network performance improvement has removed the sales choking points. Employees are now able to access the central ERP system as and when they need it, and can feed order data back to the system straight away.
Customer service improved
Customer-facing employees are now able to respond to customer requests more quickly, which is signifi cantly improving service levels and customer satisfaction.
Improved business effi ciency and
productivity
The improved network capacity, stability and reliability have led to higher levels of employee productivity and overall business effi ciency.
Improved user experience
The frustrations caused by having to work with constant network latency and cope with high levels of down time have been removed. Employees are able to perform their tasks effi ciently.
Improved invoicing effi ciency
Invoices can now be sent out on time, with the resulting improvements in cash fl ow.
Single point of accountability and billing for
all network services
This has simplifi ed and streamlined network support functions and provided fi nancial administration effi ciencies.
Improved network cost-effectiveness
The cumulative effect of all these other benefi ts is that BSi Steel now has a more cost-effective network that enables all aspects of its business, rather than hampering them.
The Benefi ts
Contact EOH NS
EOH Network Solutions
011 266 4000 [email protected]
www.eoh-ns.co.za
