Primera offers its customers a variety of services that place high demands on the infrastructure in the stores. The Cisco Meraki network solution gives the retail chain more control over the complex network traffic. Primera's automation project manager Dolph Snel: "Network reliability and continuity of the Internet connection are paramount for us."
Primera is a cooperative with 525 tobacco and convenience stores in the Netherlands. Customers know how to find the stores for magazines, stationery, greeting cards, passport photos and smoking products, but also for state lottery tickets, gift cards, ov chip cards and postal packages. The latter services require reliable Internet connections with external parties such as the Dutch Lottery and PostNL.
"Initially, those parties laid their own Internet connection in the stores. As a result, one store sometimes had as many as five or six different Internet connections. That made it very complicated for technicians who had to fix malfunctions. And, of course, we wanted to get a grip ourselves."
Nowadays, external parties are increasingly placing responsibility for the infrastructure with the entrepreneurs themselves. Primera' s headquarters in Waardenburg plays an important role in this, Snel says. "With a team of four people, we relieve all affiliated entrepreneurs of their ICT worries, allowing them to focus on business and customer contact. Also for external parties it is of course easier to switch with one central point of contact."
Retail experience
More control over Internet connections was one of the starting points in the search for a new network solution for all Primera stores. "We did not choose a particular technology in advance, but merely looked at the functional requirements and wishes. We have now covered that with good equipment and a good partner," Snel explains. Primera found that partner in Simac tells Dolph:
"Simac has clearly shown how they want to fulfill our requirements and wishes, which solutions they want to deploy for this purpose and how they want to relieve us. The reliability of the network and the continuity of the internet connection are particularly important to us. We mainly want to do what we are good at: doing business and introducing new applications on the store floor in the knowledge that the basis is simply good and well maintained. In addition, it is important that we have a partner who understands the retail sector, visits the shopping streets a lot and understands how big the impact of a failure can be for an entrepreneur."
In the cloud
The network solution Simac is implementing in the 525 stores is Cisco Meraki. This is a network solution managed entirely in the cloud, which makes implementation fast and easy. Simac's technician only needs to bring the equipment to the store. Once connected, the configuration is fully automatic. Future adjustments are also easy to realize, such as the integration of advanced solutions such as smart cameras and smart shelf labels.
"Het is mooi dat ook Cisco tijdens het project bij ons aanschuift, meedenkt over de inrichting van de infrastructuur en beschikbaar is voor vragen”, zegt Snel. “Dat is belangrijk met het oog op de toekomst. Op het moment dat ergens problemen ontstaan, willen wij dat Simac de juiste ondersteuning krijgt. Om de continuïteit op lange termijn te garanderen, is Simac immers mede afhankelijk van de kennis, kunde en betrokkenheid van toeleveranciers zoals Cisco.”
Continuïteit
Inmiddels draaien bijna alle externe partijen op het netwerk van Primera. Snel wil meer grip krijgen op de apparatuur van die partijen en de bijbehorende internetverbindingen. “Als er iets aan de hand is, willen we snel kunnen zien bij welke partij we moeten zijn. Dat is minder eenvoudig dan het lijkt. Bij een enkele dienst, zoals bij de verkoop van cadeaukaarten, moeten we misschien wel met vijf of zes leveranciers communiceren. Welke verbinding is dan het probleem?”
Met Meraki is Primera in staat het netwerkverkeer nauwkeurig te monitoren. Als iets niet werkt, wordt direct duidelijk waar het probleem zit. “We weten straks exact welke apparatuur waar staat en op welke poort die is aangesloten, zodat we problemen sneller kunnen oplossen. Hopelijk signaleren we incidenten zelfs eerder dan de ondernemer, zodat we proactief kunnen reageren”, stelt Snel. “Omdat we meer grip hebben op het netwerk kunnen we ook de kosten beter beheersen en begroten. Zo weten we als organisatie precies wat we op technisch vlak de komende jaren kunnen verwachten.”
Security
In addition to continuity, security is becoming increasingly important. With Cisco Meraki, Primera has a network solution with more possibilities and thus more flexibility. Currently, the cooperative still has a closed virtual private network (VPN) with fixed configurations. "We need to know what each device is, what it does, what Windows version is on it, what patch policy is in place and what Internet addresses it uses. Everything to ensure that any infection in the network does not spread."
Soon Primera will be able to define multiple virtual local area networks (VLAN) per store. This will offer the possibility to place the PC in a separate network, for example, so that any infection is limited to the PC in question.
"This is particularly important because we have a lot of third-party equipment in our stores. The risks involved are not entirely within our control, but we want to mitigate them wherever possible."
Support
Last spring, the rollout of Meraki began to all 525 Primera stores. That rollout was completed in early June, giving Primera and Simac a few more weeks to resolve any problems and provide aftercare before the switch had to be made on July 1, 2021. Snel is pleased with how the project went.
The business owners, represented in Primera's automation committee, are also positive. "The biggest gain for them concerns the support process. The supplier of the POS systems remains the first point of contact for them in case of a malfunction on the store floor. If it turns out to be a network failure, it is passed on to Simac with one click. If necessary, a technician is on site within four hours, who also has the right hardware available. So the new way of providing support also benefits our resolution time."
