Sypnopsis
This national vitamin and supplement distributor was looking to update its network infrastructure and find ways to reduce operating costs.
Challenge
During COVID, the online demand for vitamins and supplements grew exponentially. Their current network infrastructure was not designed to scale so dramatically. Data storage was becoming a big challenge as their servers were reaching their capacity. Also, their cyber security needs were increasing. Most of their administrative and sales team were working from home during this period. Knowing they would need to spend more capital to address their IT and cyber security concerns, they were searching for other ways to reduce their operating costs.
Solution
My Resource Partners’ consultants did a full-scale analysis of their infrastructure. We brought in several IT and cyber security specialists to give the client a range of options and innovative strategies. With a new server implementation in the cloud, all users, regardless of location, were able to securely access all applications and files. To offset the costs of this transition, we have two creative solutions to reduce costs – label printing and packing materials. The original model was purchasing pre-printed packaging labels and ordering large amounts of Styrofoam packing materials. We reduced these expenses by putting in a high-speed full color label printer which eliminated the need to order large quantities of labels at a time. Through our assessment, we recognized there was an expense to cardboard box destruction and removal. We eliminated this expense and created substantial savings by implementing a cardboard perforator which re-purposes cardboard boxes into packaging materials. The productivity gains were significant and the complete project ended in a net savings.
