Rudell’s the Jewellers was founded on Valentine’s Day 1938 by Justin Rudell. Today Rudell’s is renowned as a jeweller of excellence and with the finest customer care in the midlands, boasting the most prestigious selection of jewellery, timepieces, and luxury giftware brands.
What was the issue?
Rudell’s the Jeweller’s was in dire need of a stable internet connection across the whole business. They are a multi-site business and one of their branches, at Wolverhampton had a solid 100MB leased line, however the other branch at Harborne only had Virgin business fibre. The Harborne store would frequently go down and the business fibre product only provided a 12-hour SLA “time to fix”, which was damaging the business.
How was the client effected?
The Virgin fibre product was not reliable and would drop frequently throughout a 6-month period. This was causing various issues within the business, preventing the staff from working efficiently. A reliable link between the two sites was necessary for their stock system to operate as required.
What did we do to fix?
We spoke with the existing Wolverhampton site leased line provider for some up-to-date costs for both an upgrade to the existing leased line technology at the Wolverhampton site, as well as a new line entirely at the Harborne store. As a result, Wolverhampton now has a 1GB leased line (up and down) and Harborne has a 500MB leased line (Up and down) As part of the project we also upgraded the firewalls, utilising state of the art Fortigate technology and installed intelligent, managed Unify switches at both sites.
What effect did it have for the client?
Both sites now have a perfect blend of reliability and security, with up-to-date networking equipment across the business. Since this has been completed, they have had a significant increase in internet speed and have not had a single second of down time. The stock system runs smoothly across the two sites, and staff can work effectively and efficiently, without the threat of yet another drop out hanging over them.
As the stores are linked via a VPN, having a leased line at each site gives incredible levels of reliability in using the stock system that is hosted at the Wolverhampton site, with increased performance using the application as it no longer “spools” at the Harborne branch.
Now that both sites have managed switches, a new project is in the planning to upgrade their WiFi system. This will utilise state of the art Unify WiFi Access Points, to improve internet speeds in the show rooms and allow the sales team to access the system even faster.
