Caesarstone Background
CaesarStone manufactures high-quality, quartz surface slabs for a variety of uses and applications, such as bathroom vanities, flooring, quartz countertops , splashbacks for kitchens and more. A quartz surface pioneer and global leader, CaesarStone creates surface slabs that are easy to transport, fabricate, install and maintain. With an international distribution network, CaesarStone’s quartz surfaces are readily available worldwide at strategic global locations. Today CaesarStone is constantly focused on maintaining product and service quality while enhancing our commitment to industry innovation.
Caesarstone Australia Pty Ltd is the only composite stone company in Australia to sell what it is manufacturing. With over 70 dedicated employees in the areas of sales, distribution and customer service, CaesarStone Australia continually strives to deliver the highest level of customer satisfaction. Operating in Australia since 2001 with branches in Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast and sub distributors in Perth, Adelaide and New Zealand, CaesarStone is well positioned to meet the needs of our customers Australia wide.
A New Challenge
In 2007 Caesarstone commenced separation from its parent entity. It had become apparent that in order to drive growth it was critical to partner with an established and experienced I.T provider who is capable of handling such growth.
One of the most important factors involved in Caesarstone Australia’s decision to engage an IT Service Provider was to find a partner that could facilitate their planned national growth. For a fast growing business the ability to determine an ‘actual’ cost of I.T was critical. The management at Caesarstone Australia’s knew that the selected I.T. partner had to be able to grow with the Caesarstone Australia in order for the relationship to succeed.
Selection Criteria
Caesarstone Australia’s looked at several I.T. service providers. BlueFire was prepared to invest in the initial relationship taking a long term view that both organizations would grow together.
The Caesarstone Australia considered options such as:
- Predictable cost of IT over the term of the engagement.
- Proven track record in the Managed Services market space.
- Ability to provide ‘best of breed’ technology platform
- Ability to form a long-term working relationship/partnership.
- Guaranteed end commercial outcomes with Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- End to End IT Outsourcing Arrangements.
The Solution
Caesarstone Australia selected the BlueFire Managed Services Enterprise solution, end to end strategic IT outsourcing solution to meet their organisations requirements. The solution involves the deployment of managed desktop to all Caesarstone users via private IP network to all Caesarstone Group sites.
Caesarstone Australia applications, data and email are hosted and served to users from the data centre. All file, email, WAN communications and critical services are implemented in clustered configurations ensuring high availability and minimising the possibility of down time.
Caesarstone Australia contact a dedicated service desk team who are fluent with the Caesarstone environment and are able to resolve issues in a timely manner. This is enforced via a service level agreement that imposes financial penalties on BlueFire for failure to meet agreed service levels.
The Experience
Caesarstone Australia users login to their environment via a Wyse terminal from the remote locations directly to the BlueFire datacentre using Citrix technology. Users therefore log into an individual desktop that is located on the server in the data centre. This ensures that BlueFire can backup all user and shared data and protect customer infrastructure behind an enterprise security architecture.
Users are able to access all data, email and applications from the desktop without the potential loss of data and downtime that comes with the use of PCs.
All Caesarstone Australia users operate within a standard operating environment enabling Caesarstone Australia management to ensure users operate within pre-determined company policies and procedures.
ROI
Using BlueFire Caesarstone Australia is able to accurately forecast with certainty future IT expenditure. Over the term of the services contract BlueFire is committed to reducing overall IT operating expenditure by passing on the benefits afforded to BlueFire via superior buying power. By opting for an outsourced managed service, Caesarstone Australia is not required to make constant investment in repairing and upgrading PC’s and servers. Replacement and repair of all infrastructure is BlueFire’s responsibility and is covered in the monthly fee.
Furthermore Caesarstone Australia have avoided the enormous cost associated in building a similar infrastructure, let alone the wasted time and effort in setting up and administering a ‘best of breed’ technology environment. Caesarstone were able to leverage the BlueFire environment in order to achieve more for a lower cost. This also has allowed Caesarstone Australia to focus on their core business.
Conclusion
By engaging BlueFire, Caesarstone Australia have been able to meet organisational growth requirements without having to be concerned with the intricacies of managing a complex I.T. environment. BlueFire managed services allows Caesarstone Australia to focus on growing their core business with the knowledge that all aspects of their I.T. environment are monitored and managed 24x7 by BlueFire’s professional engineering and support teams.