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Industry
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Retail
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Customer
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Jaeger
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Product
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PowerTerm® WebConnect RemoteView
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Background
Jaeger is an iconic, luxury British fashion brand with a reputation to uphold. Whether sourcing fabric, refurbishing a store or upgrading its IT systems, it can’t afford to take the cheapest option if that choice will undermine the quality of its products and services.
When Jaeger opted for Ericom’s PowerTerm WebConnect RemoteView, it had nothing to worry about. Although Ericom’s solution was 50% less expensive than the alternative, it still delivered the high standards of reliability and performance demanded by this discerning business.
Challenges
- Upgrade existing thin client computing environment, which was no longer supported
- Reduce ongoing IT support and maintenance costs
- Save money in IT budget to enable the replacement of existing client computers
- Facilitate the integration of an acquired business
- Enable flexible and home-based working
Solution
- Replace Citrix with Ericom's PowerTerm WebConnect RemoteView
Benefits
- Ericom licenses acquired for 50% less than Citrix licenses
- Ongoing IT support and maintenance costs reduced
- IT budget freed up to enable the gradual replacement of user PCs with Wyse thin clients
- Easy to integrate additional users, following the acquisition of Aquascutum
- Employees have greater flexibility to work from home
"Particularly in times of recession, retailers have to manage their costs very closely to protect their profit margins. We reduced our expenditure on software licenses by 50% by replacing Citrix with Ericom - yet we made no compromises in functionality."
Bob Gurney, IT Manager,Jaeger
With seven day trading, 24 hour internet shopping and international outlets, high street retailers today never really close their doors. Retail organisations have to be able to support 24/7, real-time trading - and to do this they need reliable, high performance IT systems.
Expensive Citrix licenses
Like all retail organisations, Jaeger relies heavily on its IT systems. "
It is essential that our systems are up and running at all times," says Bob Gurney, IT manager at Jaeger. "
If we had a complete IT infrastructure failure on a Saturday, it could lead to a huge loss of trade."
The company was running an old version of Citrix which it used to deliver applications to an aging estate of desktop computers, at its headquarters, regional offices and stores. With no software assurance agreement in place with Citrix, (Citrix splits its technical support and product updates into two separate agreements which means customers pay twice) the company was faced with the prospect of having to purchase entirely new licences for Citrix' latest release. "
It was going to cost us a lot of money to obtain the most current version of the product," Gurney recalls.
In fact, the costs involved were so prohibitively high, that Jaeger put all its plans to upgrade its core IT infrastructure on hold. "
Quite simply, the costs held us back," Gurney says. "
As a result, we found ourselves running a software version that was no longer supported."
A surprise find
By chance, Gurney attended an industry networking event organised by the IT Directors Forum. At this event, he had the opportunity to meet with Ericom and find out about Ericom's PowerTerm WebConnect RemoteView solution. "
I discovered that Ericom offered exactly what we needed," he says. "
Its RemoteView product was very much like Citrix, in that it gave us the thin client access, but the price was much, much less."
Gurney hadn't realised that it was possible to obtain a product with similar functionality to that offered by Citrix solutions. He explains: "
I was really surprised to find this product. I had never heard about it and believe it must be one of the best kept secrets!"
PowerTerm WebConnect RemoteView provides secure and centrally managed, on-demand access to desktops and applications. A more cost effective solution than Citrix, it is also simpler to install and manage, and delivers high levels of reliability and performance.
A swift implementation
Initially, Jaeger carried out a short trial with ten users, as a proof of concept. Gurney explains why: "
Ericom kept telling us that it would only take an hour to install the solution - and we found that hard to believe! One of the aims of the trial, therefore, was to see how quickly we could install it. We also wanted to prove that the solution was robust and able to meet our needs."
By the end of just one day, Jaeger was convinced. Gurney says: "
It took a little more than an hour to get up and running... and it was very fast. We were pretty impressed, I have to say."
RemoteView now runs on six HP terminal servers at the company's headquarters. It provides access to the retailer's core IT applications and supports all aspects of the business. Users connect to RemoteView to use all the main business applications that track all processes from the development of a product, right through to sourcing, distribution and selling. All finance systems and business reporting applications are also accessed via RemoteView.
50% cost savings
The cost of purchasing new licenses from Ericom was just half the cost of upgrading Jaeger's existing Citrix licenses. "
The whole lot was 50% less expensive," Gurney says.
Because of the savings achieved with the migration to Ericom, Jaeger was able to free up IT budget to upgrade its thin clients. Over time, therefore, Jaeger rolled out new Wyse S10 and S90 thin clients for the majority of users. "
The cost savings achieved by migrating to Ericom enabled us to invest in Wyse clients and new thin client server farm," says Gurney. "
This was a real bonus for the business."
As well as having a lower acquisition cost, RemoteView is much less expensive for Jaeger to support and maintain than Citrix. The company has signed up to Ericom's annual maintenance plan, which is a single agreement which covers both the cost of all software upgrades and technical support. Consequently, the total cost of ownership is much lower. Gurney explains: "
If we had gone with Citrix and wanted to upgrade again at some point in the future, we would have had to purchase entirely new licenses again. Ericom's maintenance plan enables us to remain right up-to-date at all times, for no additional cost."
425 users - in the UK and abroad
Around 2 years after the deployment of RemoteView, Jaeger acquired another high end fashion brand, Aquascutum. The company was able to use its RemoteView solution to help it integrate the two businesses. "
We were able to get new users up and working with RemoteView very quickly," says Gurney.
Today, RemoteView is currently used by 425 users, based across two offices in Norfolk and London, as well as at 83 stores and 95 concessions. In addition, employees at ten international stores also use RemoteView to access corporate systems.
RemoteView provides the reliability and stability that all these users need for real-time trading. At the same time, Ericom provides a high standard of support that Jaeger finds very reassuring. Gurney says: "
I have found Ericom to be a company that I can work with very, very closely. They respond to issues as they occur and will help in any way that they can. They are a very friendly bunch."
All the anticipated benefits
RemoteView has now been in operation at Jaeger for over three years and delivers all the advantages inherent to thin client computing. When applications are upgraded, the IT team can make the change once and the new software is immediately accessible to everyone. "
We don't have to go around to every PC and can ensure that all our employees are using the same versions at the same time," Gurney explains.
Even though most of the company's employees now have modern Wyse clients, Jaeger knows that it can still use old desktop PCs with a low specification. "
When we first installed RemoteView, many of our employees accessed the solution from old desktop PCs," notes Gurney. "
We certainly didn't have to replace our clients to get RemoteView to work satisfactorily."
Because RemoteView can be accessed from any web-connected PC, many of Jaeger's employees use the solution to log on from their home computers. It therefore helps the company to support more flexible working arrangements. When everything is said and done, the move from Citrix to Ericom has delivered all of the benefits the company anticipated - at a fraction of the cost.
