Dixons Group
Background
The Dixons Group plc is Europe's leading electrical retailer.
It has more than 1100 stores in the UK and Ireland under the
Dixons, Currys, PC World and The Link brands, specialising
in the sale of high technology electronic and electrical products,
PCs and communications.
Commitment to customers
Through its brands, the Dixons Group aims to provide unrivalled
value to its customers by the range and quality of its products,
its competitive prices and its high standards of service.
"For Dixons, the testing of our business infrastructure,
particularly our servers provided us with total piece of mind
that we had the best servers for our business as identified
by independent experts" said Dixons. "We can now
ensure that our customers have the best service possible.
It is our responsibility to our customers and our shareholders,
as ultimately if our systems fail we are at fault. SQS-UK
has given us the confidence we needed in our business".
Importance of purchasing decision
Dixons Group's servers run the entire business from internal
mailing through to financial systems. The servers have recently
been implemented into each store branch so they run all High
Street Dixons, The Link, Currys and PC World branches. The
servers connect the Point of Sale system in each store, relaying
information about each purchase back to head office. "So
it's the servers that run the branches" said Dixons.
It is imperative that the servers are as reliable and efficient
as possible. The business implications of having unreliable
servers are straightforward - a server going down for a couple
of minutes can cost a business millions in lost information
and man hours. "Having used the same Siemens servers
for 4 years, Dixons decided that in order to ensure it is
using the most efficient, reliable servers, and in order to
decrease the cost of ownership, it would go out to tender"
continued Dixons.
Choosing a testing consultancy
Dixons realised that to ensure the best performing servers
were chosen it was essential to ask independent third party
experts to perform tests on servers from the top suppliers
in the marketplace, and listen to their independent advice
and recommendations.
"Dixons chose SQS-UK because of its reputation in the industry as being totally independent testing experts" said Dixons "This was a huge purchasing decision and it was vital that we had reliable, independent advice. The SQS-UK managed the whole process for us. We were confident that the team understood our business needs and objectives, and ultimately knew what they were doing. Throughout the whole process nothing was too much trouble, we had a very helpful team and Dixons would not hesitate to recommend them".
"SQS-UK takes great pride in being totally independent. We offer bespoke, reliable testing and consultancy that enable our clients to have total confidence in their IT systems" said Bob Bartlett, Managing Director, SQS-UK "It is essential that companies realise that investing in independent testing is not just an IT decision, but a business decision that affects the whole organisation. IT can be no longer seen as just a department in a business - it provides the infrastructure that runs the entire organisation".
The testing project
SQS-UK was given responsibility for the entire project, which
began with the selection of the best servers in the market.
Through close analysis of Dixons' business needs, SQS-UK identified
that the servers needed to be scaleable, manageable, reliable
and reusable.
For the purpose of this project, SQS-UK tested a range of servers from Compaq, IBM and Siemens. The systems were loaded with data and a series of performance tests were run over a number of weeks across NT and Novell UNIX platforms. SQS-UK conducted model server usage profile testing of the file server, messaging server and database server. For this, SQS-UK wrote automated test scripts for each usage profile, a Windows and NT4 file and print program, an SQL database program and an Internet Mail Program. SQS-UK reviewed the servers, short-listed two and then benchmarked the performance of these.
The Results - Business Critical
The results SQS-UK provided to Dixons clearly showed that
Compaq servers out-performed the rest and were most suitable
for the business. Consequently, Dixons changed the supplier
of servers, based purely on the outcome of the SQS-UK testing.
"SQS-UK provided some great results and we based our
buying decision on their recommendations. The consequence
of this was that we changed our server suppliers for the better"
said Dixons. The servers have been installed in all Dixons'
group branches and are connected to their point-of-sale system.
All information, including every sale that is made, is loaded
down on to the server and fed back to head office, proving
how business-critical a decision on the best servers are to
the Dixons Group.
The Results - Reduced Costs,
Increased efficiency
Since the new servers have been installed Dixons has noticed
some significant business benefits. "We are really pleased
at Dixons. As a result of the SQS-UK testing and the subsequent
new server installation we have significantly reduced costs
and increased performance and efficiency across the Group"
said Dixons.
Testing - a crucial on-going
process
SQS-UK and Dixons are in agreement about the importance of
testing, and that continuous and vigilant hardware and software
testing is essential to the performance of the business. "A
business's hardware is business-critical. Ultimately, if it
fails, the business comes to a halt, causing distressing situations
that can cost a business millions. In less severe circumstances
the long term implications of having slow, unreliable servers
can still severely affect your bottom line." said Bartlett.