Customer Solution Case Study
/ Soft Drinks Business Cuts Support Calls by 50 Per Cent with Proactive IT Strategy
“Between September 2008 and July 2009, the number of severe issues we experienced dropped by 50 per cent.”
David Jenkinson, Data Centre Manager, Britvic Soft Drinks
Britvic Soft Drinks is one ofthe largest drinks companies in the United Kingdom (U.K.), with brands including Pepsi and Tango. It wanted to increase system performance and reliability, and worked with Microsoft Services Premier Support to develop a proactive management strategy. The IT team receives advice and technical help from Microsoft experts and support professionals. Since starting the new strategy, system performance has improved and support calls have fallen by 50 per cent.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published August 2010
Business Needs
Founded in 1949, Britvic Soft Drinks is a well-known soft drinks company, based in the U.K. The organisation has 4,000 customers and approximately 200,000 points of distribution. Technology plays a key role in every aspect of Britvic Soft Drinks operations and the IT team needs to ensure high business continuity. Any disruptions to manufacturing or distribution processes result in lost revenue, and can potentially damage the Britvic Soft Drinks brand.
Until 2007, the Britvic Soft Drinks IT support strategy was to fix things when they broke. Dan Westley, Technical Account Manager at Microsoft, says: “Britvic Soft Drinks has a very talented IT team—it resolves any issues with the technical systems quickly.” But this reactive approach to fixing technical problems reduced the efficiency of the business. David Jenkinson, Data Centre Manager, Britvic Soft Drinks, says: “When faced with several system errors at the same time, it was difficult for us to react fast enough to avoid disruption to the business.”
In January 2007, Britvic Soft Drinks had a particularly severe system outage. Jenkinson says: “We had introduced some new technology into the data centre over the Christmas period. When the business resumed operations in the New Year, our database experienced significant performance issues.” This reduced productivity and affected operations. “To maintain system performance for supply chain users, we had to stop other users from accessing the system,” says Jenkinson.
The IT team restored the system, but the company realised it needed to change the way it managed its infrastructure. “It was a wake-up call,” says Jenkinson. “We knew that we needed to start managing our systems proactively, so we could prevent a similar situation happening again.”
Solution
Britvic Soft Drinks signed up for the Premier Support service from Microsoft. This provides Britvic Soft Drinks with advice and support from a team of experts at Microsoft, including Dedicated Supportability Engineers (DSEs), and Technical Account Managers (TAMs).
DSEs perform regular risk assessments for the Microsoft products used by Britvic Soft Drinks, including Microsoft SQL Server 2005 data management software, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004. Premier Support assessments aim to highlight weaknesses in the infrastructure—for example, where errors are likely to occur, and areas that could be optimised to deliver greater value.
The central point of contact that Britvic Soft Drinks has with Microsoft is through its TAM Dan Westley. He says: “I meet David Jenkinson and the Britvic Soft Drinks IT team every six weeks to discuss strategy, lessons learned, and the next set of improvement targets.”
Jenkinson says: “We discuss and plan future activities and implementations in our meetings, ensuring that our deployment strategies are designed for maximum effectiveness.” For example, in March 2010, Britvic Soft Drinks merged its U.K. and Ireland operations and needed to expand its user base by 750 users. “We wanted to minimise the impact of these additional users on the IT infrastructure, so we talked to the Microsoft Services Premier Support team. We then prepared our systems based on its best-practice advice.”
Microsoft Services Premier Support also arranges IT workshops and informal knowledge-sharing meetings, called “chalk and talk” sessions. “All Microsoft trainers specialise in a product and many were involved in the initial creation of that technology,” says Westley.
Although Britvic Soft Drinks is now managing its systems proactively, it can still contact Microsoft Services Premier Support for advice and technical support. “We receive 24-hour support from Microsoft. We can phone for advice, and, if we need it, an engineer can be dispatched to our site at any time,” says Jenkinson.
Benefits
By working with Microsoft Services Premier Support, Britvic Soft Drinks has developed a greater understanding of its Microsoft products. System performance has improved, support calls to Microsoft have dropped by 50 per cent, and the IT team is delivering a much better service to the business.
- Knowledge is increased. Through workshops and informal “chalk and talk” sessions, Jenkinson and his team developed an intimate knowledge of their Microsoft solutions. “I appreciate the fact that we’re not speaking to someone who is just a trained teacher. We’re talking to a specialist who has incredibly in-depth knowledge about the solution,” says Jenkinson.
- System performance is enhanced. “The SQL Server knowledge sessions were particularly good,” says Jenkinson. “After attending these sessions, we optimised our systems to increase transaction response times by 0.6 seconds. When you consider the size of our database—more than 5.7 terabytes—that’s a big improvement.”
- Business continuity is ensured. Jenkinson says: “Microsoft helps us identify potential technical issues, and advise us which steps can prevent problems occurring. If we encounter an error, our IT team has the knowledge to fix it.” This proactive strategy has increased reliability. “Between September 2008 and July 2009, the number of severe issues we experienced dropped by 50 per cent,” says Jenkinson.
- Support is fast and comprehensive. “Because our relationship is so strong, Microsoft already understands how our infrastructure is set up, so it can start helping us immediately,” says Jenkinson. As a result, 50 per cent of support requests are completed in less than 5 hours.
IT team and infrastructure are more flexible. Jenkinson says: “By following advice from our Microsoft team, we successfully integrated the entire Ireland user base within our IT systems. The impact on performance was negligible—around 0.1 seconds per transaction. This demonstrates the effectiveness of a proactive strategy. And, combined with our close relationship with the Microsoft Services Premier Support team, this helps us resolve challenges quickly.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published August 2010