Technology Refresh / Investment Protection
The Client:
A large independent and public specialty retailer with over 400 retail outlets in 45 US States. Also has one of the largest online stores in their line of specialty.
The Challenge:
The client, which had recently undergone a merger with it's largest competitor, was struggling with high organizational growth and had systems that were both reaching capacity and slated to go into an unsupported status. They had implemented IBM System i890's a few years prior and needed to hold operational costs to a minimum while increasing processing power for anticipated growth and position themselves for High Availability in the future, all without impacting current operations. They requested that Solutions II help them to evaluate their options and make good decisions that would allow for support, but more strategically position them for the future.
The SOLUTIONS II Solution:
The Solutions II / IBM team brought a group of experts to the table to develop a transaction which could solve their financial goals with a system which could satisfy their technology requirements. The team used requirements based processes to guide the client through the decision making and risk analysis. The first item that was discovered was that they must move quickly so that they would not impact their 2007 fall busy season with a system change. The second issue was that to ensure that they had full vendor support, the initial project (system change and OS upgrade) must be completed before June. The team developed a project plan which accomplished the technology and support goals by replacing/upgrading their System i890 with a System i595 while bringing together an implementation team which could perform the upgrade with little downtime and limit the impact on IT staff.
Solutions-II, Inc. then worked with the financial consultants from IBM Global Finance to identify the best methods of maintaining current system costs while giving the Client the performance to grow through 2009. An operating lease was custom designed for them that protected their cash flow which allowed them to limit capital costs.