Pilkington slices 20% costs off global network

£2.8bn global glass manufacturer Pilkington is getting 20% savings – around eur2m over three years – on its total data WAN (wide area network) infrastructure costs as a result of outsourcing. Stephen Pownall, Pilkington group information systems director, says that going for Vanco has reduced his budget requirement from eur12m to eur10m – and with significant improvements in resilience and capacity. He also reckons that the admin and hassle factors of keeping what’s become a critical business network running are greatly reduced. “Before we had a mish-mash of networks and suppliers managed by ourselves, and any problems were always somebody else’s fault. Having a to a global managed service for us completely changes all that.” Vanco took over provision of Pilkington’s network six months ago. It’s providing a multiple technology, multiple carrier solution based on frame relay as the backbone, with leased lines where necessary, IP VPN and ISDN, together providing high availability and resilience. The network links 266 sites – most manufacturing plants – across 17 European countries, as well as the US, Mexico, Canada and Australia. Vanco’s service is about integrating different providers and providing a fully managed solution with a single end-to-end SLA (service level agreement) covering infrastructure from no less than 35 providers across the geographies. Pownall says that, in contrast to the previous solution, Pilkington now views its network as a significant enabler of competitive advantage. “We rely heavily on our network in order to manage our business, so need a provider that will guarantee a consistent and reliable service. “Vanco has not only given us a global, tailored solution that no basic infrastructure provider could give, but we have also cut costs in the process. A lot of companies talk about a single global entity for IT, but as far as I am concerned we are one of the few to do this.” Pilkington has been through considerable change since the mid ‘90s: the firm used to run as semi-autonomous businesses, with no group view of enterprise technology and network infrastructure. When, however, the requirement for consolidation and economies of scale came, particularly in its world-wide building products and automotive glass divisions, the company had to substantially rebuild its IT. Pilkington is now a substantial SAP ERP shop, following several years of implementation and roll-out. There’s now one instance of SAP running the automotive sites and businesses world-wide, while four instances of SAP manage the global building products side. Part of that considerable achievement has been the result of setting up a global IS group, and building a robust network. Initially, Pownall’s team built that themselves, using the big telcos and national and international providers like AT&T, BT and GlobalOne. “There wasn’t a global provider so we had to put together the contracts for supply of the plumbing wherever we operate, and manage it ourselves.” But over the years that has proved costly and fraught with admin and performance problems. With the network crucial to running the joined up businesses, it was too important to leave alone. From a situation where it was managing over 10 infrastructure providers in-house and locally, Pilkington’s vision was to unify the network under a single provider, maximise efficiency and cut cost. The firm also wanted to centralise specialist applications and SAP, as well as integrate remote users right into the network to improve the ability of teams world wide to deal with live business data. So in 2001, Pownall went out to tender for a global contact for supply and/or managed services. He says Pilkington shortlisted about 10 of the big global providers, but selected Vanco at the time because of its different and attractive approach – based on SLAs and proactive WAN management and improvement. Pilkington now has a best-of-breed communications solution nationally and internationally. It’s achieved the objective of centralising management and control of the network with single partner; it’s for far better network visibility through Vanco’s O-Zone technology; and it’s got improved service delivery. Although Pilkington retains a small headquarters team to manage the contract and keep abreast of the technology and business requirements, day-to-day operations are provided entirely as a service.