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COMMUNICATIONS & NETWORKING BUILDING A BETTER COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY
Etex, a global building materials specialist, turned to GTT for help driving a digital transformation initiative to create a more customer- centric organisation
E
tex’s business depends on each site staying connected to the company’s central IT systems platform to avoid disruption to its production processes. Working with GTT, the company has achieved this goal while implementing its IT strategy. The Etex IT team prides itself on offering an innovative and customer-centric service experience, which is underpinned by constant data streams across its network that feed its global customer relationship management, automation and quality assurance tools.
For more than a decade, Etex has worked with GTT as its trusted partner to continuously evolve its global network and meet its needs for robust service uptime, IT security and cloud adoption.
Currently, Etex is driving a digital transformation initiative to become an even more customer-centric organisation. Its goal is to harmonise and improve processes, activities, and collaboration across its business. Key digital milestones have included the introduction of Salesforce, the launch of a digital customer platform ensuring product transparency and omni-channel product availability, as well as new automation tools and business applications residing primarily in the Microsoft Azure cloud.
Delivering digital transformation at this level has increased the pressure on Etex’s network across Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. As it moved to more application-aware networking and greater
cloud adoption, bandwidth for many of the company’s locations needed to be increased in a secure and agile way, without increasing costs. Etex also chose to deploy Microsoft Teams to harmonise and facilitate collaboration across its business and sought a simple design for its global communication needs.
The solution, from GTT, includes: – SD-WAN
– Cloud Connect – SIP Trunking
– Professional Services
GTT has worked with Etex to evolve its legacy application-aware WAN to a next level of resilience, reliability and security for its data and voice, enabling improved collaboration globally. Etex now uses a standardised networking platform to operate its centralised and cloud-first IT strategy with speed and agility. This standardisation not only simplifies its setup but enables it to act as a global secure platform that brings applications to users in an optimal way and streamlines business expansion so it can happen quickly and easily.
GTT provides Etex with Managed SD-WAN across more than 91 sites around the world. The solution is integrated with GTT’s global Tier 1 internet backbone for an enhanced user experience. Together with GTT Cloud Connect – providing private and direct cloud
connectivity – and combined with WAN optimisation, the solution accelerates the performance of Etex’s business-critical applications. Many of the company’s locations also benefit from increased bandwidth availability by combining primary and backup connections into a single, always-on and high- availability setup. The fully redundant connections share the ongoing traffic load, while ensuring a fail-over line remains available in the event of a fault. GTT also delivers SIP Trunking
44 MAY 2023 | PROCESS & CONTROL
services to Etex, enabling inbound and outbound global calling that complement the manufacturer’s cloud-based Microsoft Teams deployment. GTT connects its global, fully redundant and robust network of session border controllers embedded in its own Tier 1 IP backbone, enabling it to offer a single platform with dedicated SIP trunks to Microsoft Teams. This ensures Etex’s users benefit from optimised voice traffic performance and an improved calling experience. The service, supported by GTT’s voice experts, includes hundreds of telephone numbers in all the countries where Etex maintains operations. A designated GTT Professional Services team collaborates with Etex on its ongoing digital transformation, offering tailored design, project, technical and assurance support. A project manager, service manager and technical managers act as advocates and work hand-in-hand with the Etex team to ensure an optimal services operation, overseen by a robust strategic governance model and steering committee. Cybersecurity has never been more business-critical. Etex and its GTT team are aligning their cybersecurity approach with the manufacturer’s current and future needs. They are jointly exploring a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) framework for the next evolution of its networking and threat protection in order to continuously mitigate potential risks in the changing security landscape. The benefits of the solution:
– Increased available bandwidth by 50% – Decreased cost per MB by 30% – Decreased number of network incidents
by 60%
Improved efficiency: a stable network based on SD-WAN, with even higher uptimes than before, higher bandwidth and application prioritisation. Lower TCO: By implementing GTT-managed SD-WAN, Cloud Connect and SIP Trunking services in place of its legacy services, Etex has reduced the total cost of ownership (TCO) for its overall IT spend by 15%. Improved visibility: The SD-WAN network management tools provided by GTT through its EtherVision customer portal have improved Etex’ visibility across its entire enterprise network. EtherVision provides data and reporting to help Etex and GTT understand and evolve the network and make continual improvements. EtherVision also provides access to SD-WAN and SIP Trunking-related service components such as inventory, call details, order status and invoicing in one easily accessible dashboard.
GTT
www.gtt.net
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