Success story Leased lines
Le Creuset
Making the right connection...
When the world’s leading manufacturer of enamelled cast iron cookware needed to increase its bandwidth,
Entanet was able to deliver the high levels of performance, service and support it expected
Viewpoint
“Le Creuset is famed
all over the world for
its enamelled cast iron
cookware through a
combination of
excellent quality of
manufacturing, the use
of superior materials
and innovative product
design.”
Le Creuset is famed all over the world for its enamelled cast iron cookware. It has won this unsurpassed
reputation through a combination of excellent quality of manufacturing, the use of superior materials and
innovative product design. It expects no less of its suppliers and when the company’s UK-based IT
operations needed to find a reliable supplier for dedicated leased line communications, Entanet was able to
provide a level of performance, service and support that met Le Creuset’s high standards.
As IT Manager for Le Creuset, Chris Wakeman is in charge of all IT operations and projects including
internet connectivity. In the UK the company has around 150 users and the UK IT team also looks after Le
Creuset group projects such as web sites and intranets. In addition, it has responsibility for communications
with Le Creuset’s materials sourcing operations in China and Japan.
This includes the management of business-critical on-line ordering systems for these remote operations,
which are responsible for supplying master product categories in bulk from Far Eastern manufacturers and
arranging shipments to Europe. “Good communications links are extremely important”, says Chris. “Without
that they would not be able to process orders.”
Vital links
Chris Wakeman,
IT Manager, Le Creuset
Internet connectivity is also vital to Le Creuset’s day to day operations. As well as email and the internally
managed web sites, the company has web-based virtual private network (VPN) links to its nationwide chain
of 12 retail shops. These systems connect electronic point of sale (EPOS) systems in these outlets to the
central IT systems, enabling Le Creuset to keep an up-to-date track on takings and overall performance.
In addition, it has around 40 mobile workers who need to connect into the office on a regular basis, either
from home or other remote locations. These connections are also managed over the internet through a
VPN.
Many of the systems have only been introduced in relatively recent times, making Le Creuset increasingly
dependent on its connectivity to the internet. “We are running all our core retail systems over the DSL lines
and everything now falls back onto our comms really. If we lost our line we would be in deep trouble,” says
Chris.
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Business-critical connection
The company started using Entanet as its leased line provider early in 2007. Prior to this it had relied on
two bonded DSL lines provided by another supplier. Whilst this had given Le Creuset bandwidth and was
relatively inexpensive, it also meant that the company had to put up with occasional loss of services. “When
we didn’t have critical applications running over the internet it was fine, and it worked very well on our old
site.” says Chris. “But when we moved offices we started running into trouble with things like latency and
contention on the DSL lines and that was something we increasingly couldn’t tolerate – because of the
critical applications we manage, the group depends on us to be a 24/7 operation.”
Mid-way through 2006, Le Creuset’s UK operations had relocated to new offices a few miles down the road
in Andover. It soon found that the bonded DSL connection would not deliver the same level of performance
at the new site as it had at the company’s previous location. This seemed to be down to the higher density
of DSL users in the area. Despite an upgrade to the equipment in the local exchange the delays persisted. At
the same time, the on-line applications were becoming increasingly critical to the business. It was time for a
re-evaluation.
Le Creuset had really outgrown the DSL connection by now and it became clear to Chris and his colleagues
that the company needed a dedicated line that came with a good service level agreement. Having made an
assessment of the available options, Chris decided that a leased line was the best way to go.
Impressive offering
The company decided it would need to install a 2Mbps leased line connection with an option to up-rate the
service 4Mbps to cope with peak demands. While the incumbent supplier was asked to quote for this service
provision, Le Creuset also conducted an extensive web search for alternative suppliers. Chris was impressed
with Entanet’s offerings and track record and asked the company – along with a number of other service
providers – to put forward a quotation.
“The service that they’ve given us for the price has just been
fantastic really. It’s just sitting there and doing its job and we
haven’t had any outages and haven’t had one problem with it.”
As well as offering a very competitive price, Entanet could provide Le Creuset with the guaranteed level of
performance and service it required. “Entanet gave us the same service, plus more, but at a considerably
more competitive cost than the nearest competitor”, says Chris. Entanet’s quote included ADSL backup as
well as 24-hour UK based monitoring and support.
Le Creuset didn’t want to take any risks though and Chris admits that, when he initially saw the Entanet
quote, he thought it was too good to be true. “I did phone them to find out what customers they already had
and why they could offer such a good service at such an attractive price. I felt very comfortable with their
answers and they seemed to be a very good company. They were also flexible enough to negotiate specific
contract terms that gave us additional confidence in them.”
A good decision
The decision to choose Entanet to provide the leased line service has proved to be a very good one indeed,
he continues. “The service that they’ve given us for the price has just been fantastic really. It’s just sitting
there and doing its job and we haven’t had any outages and haven’t had one problem with it.”
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bespokesales@enta.net
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Even the implementation of the line was carried out to an exceptional standard, Chris says. “It went very
well and I think it’s the first time that I have ever emailed to a supplier to say ‘thank you for your help’.”
Entanet also went out of its way to meet a specific requirement that Le Creuset had to implement a rackmountable router. Normally Entanet would supply a stand-alone Cisco 1800 router, but agreed to supply a
more expensive Cisco 2800 series router which can be installed in a rack and also has the advantage of
having on-board DSL capability for the backup line.
Smooth implementation
Chris says that he has overseen the implementation of many leased lines but none have been as smooth
and trouble-free and Entanet’s installation for Le Creuset. The overall service provided by Entanet has been
excellent, he says, but what he liked most of all were the clear lines of communication between himself and
the company.
“It always seems to be a headache when you change your ISP or lines, but this just went so smoothly none
of the users even realised that we had switched over. The support, especially from the account manager
who looked after us, was very good. If there were any issues they came straight back and had them
resolved, and instead of the usual ‘I’ll come back to you’ or taking two days to respond, it was usually within
half an hour.”
Conclusion
Working with Entanet has also made it easier for Le Creuset to manage its relationship with BT. Entanet is a
key partner for BT and liaises with the company on Le Creuset’s behalf, keeping Chris and his colleagues
informed of any planned maintenance and engineering work or any changes that might impact service
levels.
Improved performance
“It always seems to be
a headache when you
change your ISP or
lines, but this just went
so smoothly none of
the users even realised
that we had switched
over. The support,
especially from the
account manager who
looked after us, was
very good.”
Chris estimates that the performance of the Entanet leased line is four or five times better than it had been
with the bonded DSL connection. Uptime has been 100%, which has made the connectivity with the Far
Eastern operations in particular much more efficient and productive. “Our biggest win is with China and
Japan. Before, with the DSL lines we had ping rates out that averaged 400 milliseconds – that has been cut
by two thirds as a result of moving to the Entanet leased line. It has improved the response time and made
the system much easier to use.”
In real terms for users of the ordering system, the performance has improved much more than this, says
Chris. “Before, if a user in Shanghai opened a web page from one of our web sites here, the response time
would have been half a second before it started doing anything. That’s been cut to more like a tenth.”
Chris says he will have no hesitation in asking Entanet to quote for any future connectivity requirements.
The company already has a number of ADSL connections for its retail outlets and remote workers and he is
looking at transferring these to Entanet so that he can have all connectivity with a single supplier. This
would also mean that all of Le Creuset’s UK operations would benefit from the excellent service and support
provided by Entanet.
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