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Top Midmarket InnovatorsRealizing Business Value with

IBM Systems and Storage

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Executive Summary/Introduction

Midmarket Challenges Protect and Grow YourBusiness

Accelerate Time-to-Value of IT

Focus on Customers

IBM recently completed the 2008 Global CEO Study: TheEnterprise of the Future Analysis of the MidmarketEnterprise, during which we interview over 1,000 CEOsfrom around the world to understand their key prioritiesand challenges. We found, overwhelmingly, that CEOs arehungry for change—change that will allow them to inno-vate in their markets, create adaptive business models andcapture the growth opportunities they see. For midsizedcompanies, these types of changes can be particularlychallenging.

I am pleased to present a new report, Top MidmarketInnovators—Realizing Business Value with IBM Systemsand Storage, that summarizes the findings of the CEOstudy and presents case studies of mid-sized companiesthat have applied IBM technology to change, adapt andgrow.

You will read how companies have improved time-to-market, developed deep insights into their customers andopportunities, and expanded their business. For example,Behr India, an HVAC design and manufacturing firm, hassignificantly accelerated its ability to test and incorporatenew technologies into its product line. The result has beenthat they get more innovative products into customers’hands more quickly.

IBM and IBM Business Partners have had the opportunityof working with these companies to help improve theircompetitive advantage in a changing market place. I inviteyou to read these brief case studies to begin to explorehow we may be able to do the same for your business.

Sincerely,

Erich ClementiGeneral Manager, Business Systems Division

Improve Your Competitive Advantage

A message from Erich Clementi, General Manager, IBM Business Systems Division

Using this report

Midmarket Challenges:Analysis of the Midsize Enterprise

Protect and Grow Your Business


Focus on Customers

For more information

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Focus on Customers

Organization of the innovation stories

The innovation stories have been organized in threethemes which address key client needs. The themes are:Protect and Grow Your Business, Accelerate Time-to-Value of IT, Focus on Customers. Within each theme thestories are grouped into important business capabilitiesthat IBM delivers, helping its clients to be competitive inthe market place.

Section 1: Protect and Grow YourBusiness:Security: companies around the world are striving toaddress the growing security and regulatory requirements.Scalability: companies are looking for scalable systemsthat help them reduce the complexity and cost of IT.Trusted Technology & Innovation: companies need to pro-tect sensitive data for which they need trusted technologyand innovative systems to meet the evolving needs of theirbusiness.

Section 2: Accelerate Time-to-Value of ITIntegration: companies are seeking to integrate the ITresources and to improve the utilization of their IT infra-structure for a lower total cost of ownership.Performance: companies are trying to find ways to reducethe costs and grow the profits with application perform-ance that helps keeps IT invisible.Solutions Built with Application Providers: companies needproven solutions to provide a consolidated view of dataand use information better in decision-making.

Section 3: Focus on CustomersWorld-Class Support with Local, Vertical IndustryExpertise: companies need world class support fromteams that know their business to reduce time-to-marketfor new products and services.Reliability: companies need to ensure the maximum uptimeof their critical business applications to provide outstand-ing value to their customers.Ease of Use: companies benefit from easy to use toolsthat simplify the management of IT enabling them to run amore effective business with more productive employees.

Using this report

Using this report

Midmarket Challenges:Analysis of the Midsize Enterprise

Protect and Grow Your Business


Focus on Customers

For more information

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Focus on Customers

Midmarket Challenges:Analysis of the Midsize

Enterprise● 2008 Global CEO Study

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Focus on Customers

IBM Global CEO Study IBM Global CEO Study: The Enterprise of the Future Analysis of the Midmarket Enterprise June 2008

IBM Global Business Services conducted the third iterationof its Global CEO study in 2008. Of the 1,130 participants,136 were midmarket as defined by <1000 employees.

In the research, CEOs were asked how they and theirorganizations were addressing:

■ New and changing customers■ Global integration■ Business model innovation

The study revealed the five key characteristics and theassociated challenges faced by today’s midmarket companies:

■ Hungry for change: change to quickly respond tochanging market and industry trends

■ Innovative beyond customer imagination: delight-ing customers by surpassing their expectations

■ Globally integrated: global integration to access thebest capabilities, knowledge and assets in the world

■ Disruptive by nature: radically challenging its busi-ness model, disrupting the basis of competition

■ Genuine, not just generous: reflecting genuine con-cern for society and incorporating those concerns intoits strategies and culture

Hungry for changeAlthough all companies wrestle with change, MidsizeEnterprises (MSEs) have a far greater challenge withchange and are less successful effectively managingchange. The reasons for this are:

■ These companies operate with less resources andtherefore less bandwidth to handle unexpected or dis-ruptive external factors.

■ They typically have operated more narrowly in areassuch as geography, industry, product/service lines,market segments and even people skills. Now theyhave to be broader in all areas to compete.

■ Many midsize companies are privately held and themanagement team may be long-time personnel, evenfamily members. They may not have the ability to han-dle the degree of change required to survive and there-fore may inadvertently try to ignore it.

Innovative beyond customer imaginationMidmarket CEOs are optimistic about developingeconomies and are rapidly innovating their business mod-els to compete in the market place. However, CEOs cau-tioned that using the same go-to-market strategies,products and services seldom works in these developingeconomies. Tapping into these new geographic anddemographic segments will require a deeper understand-ing of the customers and a more tailored approach.

IBM Global CEO Study—The Enterprise of the Future: ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/ceostudy2008.html

http://www.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/ceostudy2008.html

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Focus on Customers

IBM Global CEO Study

Outperforming companies are using emerging technolo-gies such as virtual worlds to gain insights into the currentand future informed customer and put in place systemsthat provide fast feedback and early indicators of changingcustomer demand.

Globally integratedCEOs are changing their business design to benefit fromglobal integration and to adapt to the turbulent pace ofchange. The biggest challenge midsize company’s face ishow to acquire and manage the skills and talent requiredto truly be globally integrated. CEOs realize they can’t justuse their domestic team to drive international business andtherefore are redefining what constitutes international.

The path to global integration is particularly challenging tomidmarket companies that typically have their roots in alocal or at the most, national business for the majority oftheir history.

Disruptive by natureMost CEOs in midmarket are embarking on extensivebusiness model innovation. Outperformers are pursuingeven more disruptive business model innovations than

their underperforming peers. To keep in mind that enter-prises of the future seek change, and embrace the newcustomer and market, it’s clear they have to change theirbusiness models to do so.

Companies are changing their business models because itis increasingly becoming difficult for them to differentiatebased on products and services alone.

Genuine, not just generousCEOs generally agree that customer expectations of cor-porate social responsibility (CSR) are increasing. The envi-ronment is one obvious touchstone: climate change hasbecome an urgent call to action for citizens and compa-nies around the world. While customers have always caredabout societal issues, their concerns are now more frequently turning into action and influencing purchasingdecisions.

For CEOs, having the skills on their teams to understandhow CSR is affecting the business is critical. Questionsthey face every day include how to factor in the informedcustomer, how to use blogs, what does social mediamean to the business and how the people in organizationsmake business decisions every day?

IBM Global CEO Study—The Enterprise of the Future: ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/ceostudy2008.html

http://www.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/ceostudy2008.html

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Focus on Customers

Protect and Grow YourBusiness

● Scalability

● Security

● Trusted Technology andInnovation

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Behr India finds cool solution to IT challenges with IBM

ChallengeAs company sales grew at better than 20% a year, BehrIndia had acquired a variety of applications and hardwaresystems, supporting both its engineering design and gen-eral business administration functions. As the demands onthe IT infrastructure increased, the existing environmentwas unable to provide the scalability and cost-effectivegrowth path that the company needed.

With diverse operating systems, server platforms andapplications, Behr India found its expansion plans werehindered by rising IT costs; decentralized data storage pre-sented a risk to the business, and existing systems werenot easily scaled up to meet new customer demands.

SolutionWith help from IBM® Business Partner CMS Computers,Behr India chose an integrated IBM solution offering highperformance with low operational costs. The companyimplemented IBM System x™ (xSeries models 206 and226) and System i™ platforms, with IBM DB2® databaseand IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager, to support a widerange of design, production and administration systems.

Behr India also installed 22 IBM IntelliStation® POWER™ 265 and 275 workstations running the IBM AIX 5L™ operating system to support its CATIA V4 &V5 application.

Benefits of innovation■ IBM and CMS Computing have provided a complete

infrastructure for Behr India that offers easy manage-ment and the ability to expand non-disruptively as thebusiness grows.

■ With its new IBM servers, workstations and software,Behr India has improved the availability, reliability andscalability of its infrastructure.

■ Centralized information management is providing betterprotection against data loss

■ An additional IBM System i5™ server will be added as a full disaster recovery solution for the ERPenvironment.

Behr India Limited designs and manufactures advanced heating, ventilating and air-conditioning(HVAC) units for the automotive industry

“ For a mid-size company, the inte-gration and range of IBM technolo-gies are very attractive, helping usto build an efficient, effective andscalable infrastructure.”– Kedar Potnis, Head of IT, Behr India




Focus on Customers

Behr India

Constantia Hueck Folien

COPAN Systems

Convergence CT

Redecard

Centrinet

IM Group

http://www.ibm.com/systems

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ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

Behr India


COPAN Systems

Convergence CT

Redecard

Centrinet

IM Group

Constantia Hueck Folien implements a scalable IBM infrastructure for SAPsoftware

ChallengeThe manufacture of packaging is a high-volume, low-margin sector, where success depends on the completeefficiency of production processes. Hueck Folien’s manu-facturing costs must be kept to a minimum in order to pro-tect profits—and to pay for an extensive research anddevelopment program, as product innovation is the bestway to remain competitive.

The company’s existing infrastructure had been imple-mented some years before, and was based around anumber of aging Linux® and UNIX® servers. As businessdemands grew, the hardware was beginning to underper-form, and Hueck Folien also wanted to move to a newplatform that would offer greater scalability and resiliencein case of disaster.

SolutionHueck Folien worked with Profi, an IBM Business Partner,to build a new infrastructure that could handle thedemands of an updated SAP software environment. Thenew solution virtualizes the seven components of its SAPERP application onto just two IBM System p5™ 550servers, while two IBM System Storage™ N5200 disk sys-tems handle the company’s storage needs.

According to Bruno Sticht, “The whole implementationwas completed remarkably quickly, thanks to the collabo-ration with Profi. It was really a highlight of the project. Wewere able to proceed from first concepts to go-live withinsix months. The migration itself—to a new system land-scape, hardware and applications—took just 12 weeks.We had planned for a considerable period of downtime,but in fact we were only offline for a short time.”

Benefits of innovation■ By almost guaranteeing that Hueck Folien’s SAP appli-

cations and other systems will remain available 24x7,the IBM infrastructure reduces risk for the business andhelps to ensure that profit margins are preserved.

■ Equally, the new solution offers considerable scalability—the N5200 can hold up to 84TB of diskcapacity, while the p5-550 servers contain a number of inactive processors that can be turned on whenrequired, using the IBM Capacity Upgrade on Demandfeature.

■ As Hueck Folien may need to adapt to group-wide pol-icy changes made by its parent company, Constantia,the flexibility offered by this infrastructure could be veryimportant in the long term.

“ We had worked with IBM hardware before, and we had a lot of confidencein the capabilities of the System p5 family, especially in terms of the virtual-ization of memory and processors.”– Bruno Sticht, Head of Information Systems, Hueck Folien


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Focus on Customers

Behr India


COPAN Systems

Convergence CT

Redecard

Centrinet

IM Group

COPAN Systems joins IBM in unlocking value of long-term data

Solution from COPAN Systems and IBM offers hospital system premier storage capability

ChallengeThose in healthcare know that these are challenging times.With skyrocketing health care costs, draconian budgetcuts and privacy laws, having patient data at their finger-tips could mean the difference between life and death.

To save critical minutes - or perhaps split-seconds—healthcare workers today are looking to dispense withpaper charts, handwritten notes and tapes that need tran-scribing. There is no time for slowed or failed data access,lost data or systems failures. They need information deliv-ered to them immediately—and ideally, from one singlesource.

SolutionSwedish Medical, based in Seattle with three hospital loca-tions, turned to a storage solution that included IBM TivoliStorage Manager and COPAN MAID Virtual Tape Library.

COPAN Systems, a Premier IBM Business Partner®, hastackled such challenges in the healthcare industry. Thecrux of COPAN business is providing a disk-based archivestorage platform using the MAID (Massive Array of IdleDisks) technology. COPAN Systems Revolution220T/220TX delivers a scalable and reliable Virtual TapeLibrary solution, which, by integrating with IBM TivoliStorage Manager running on IBM System p™, allows hos-pitals and other healthcare facilities to maintain, file and archive data, such as medical records, in secure environments.

Benefits of innovation■ Among the benefits of the IBM and COPAN Systems

storage solution have been the ability to have immedi-ate and simultaneous access to a patient’s completemedical records, including sound and image files fromtests and procedures

■ An increase in staff productivity■ Significantly slashed costs■ Improved patient care, including enhanced monitoring

of those admitted to a hospital.

“ The cost of advanced technology attachment disk, recovery time from tapeand security concerns with tapes being transported or stored offsite werethe key drivers for implementing an IBM Tivoli Storage Manager andCOPAN MAID Virtual Tape Library Solution.”– Keith Hughes, senior UNIX Administrator, Swedish Medical


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Focus on Customers

Behr India


COPAN Systems

Convergence CT

Redecard

Centrinet

IM Group

Convergence CT helps healthcare providers evaluate treatment plans fast withthe IBM Balanced Warehouse

Convergence CT is a premier provider of highly secure, HIPAA-compliant data warehousingsolutions and analytics that help healthcare and life science organizations improve the quality andefficiency of treatment

ChallengeConvergence CT helps medical and life sciences organiza-tions gather and analyze huge amounts of patient data todetermine which treatments work best, which drugs aremost effective and which hospitals save the most lives andwhy. When the company was charged by the AmericanMedical Group Association (AMGA) to help AMGA mem-ber organizations evaluate the effectiveness of patient carewithin their institutions, Convergence CT needed to delivera pre-tested, pre-optimized solution that could pull datafrom a variety of locations—desktop databases, data-marts, legacy systems, and practice management andERM applications.

SolutionSolution Convergence CT implemented its analytics solu-tion on the IBM Balanced Warehouse D5000. The solutioncomes pre-configured with DB2 Warehouse software, IBM System x3650 server and IBM System StorageEXP3000, making it easy for Convergence CT to install itsclinical data warehouse at client sites. IBM BalancedWarehouse was selected because it offered a

high-performance, scalable and secure platform for storinga growing amount of sensitive information. With DB2 9technology, IBM Balanced Warehouse provides theembedded technologies, such as deep compression, thathelp Convergence CT exceed the performance of existingdata warehouse solutions at client institutions. Theadvanced analytics software enables healthcare providersto easily perform ad hoc queries and complex analyticsacross terabytes of detailed clinical data. Integratedadministrative tools enable Convergence CT to easily man-age the offering.

Benefits of innovation■ Accelerates time to results by providing a proven clini-

cal data model and advanced analytics environment■ Organizes data into a single, analyzable data model

which includes clinical as well as operational data■ Improves access to key patient and provider insights

by enabling automated and ad hoc queries and com-plex analytics with terabytes of detailed clinical data

■ Provides an affordable approach through low acquisi-tion, management and use costs, making it moreaccessible to more medical institutions

■ Delivers ROI within 90 days

“ The power and responsiveness of IBM Balanced Warehouse is helping usand medical facilities around the world identify the best ways to treat cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases.”– Lambert Onuma, President and Chief Executive Officer, Convergence CT


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Focus on Customers

Behr India


COPAN Systems

Convergence CT

Redecard

Centrinet

IM Group

Redecard goes to market with IBM and SAP

Redecard is a fast-growing company that offers electronic transaction processing services forcredit and debit card companies that operate in Brazil

ChallengeRedecard’s sales volumes have been growing at around20 percent annually, yet staffing levels have remained moreor less constant—making Redecard a lean and profitableenterprise. However, sustaining this growth rate wouldrequire further capital investment, so the board decided tofloat the company on the Brazilian Stock Exchange.

“The challenge we faced was that our existing IT systemswere part of a shared infrastructure with other companiesin our group, and it was difficult to extend this system tohandle the stricter financial regulations with which a listedcompany has to comply,” says Manoel Correa, FinancialAccounting Manager at Redecard. “We realized that weneeded to start from scratch and build a new IT environ-ment that would meet these needs.”

SolutionIBM Global Business Services proposed implementing asolution based around SAP ERP Financials and SAP ERPOperations, which would use the SAP NetWeaver technol-ogy platform to interface with the company’s XRT treasurysoftware and Alliance fiscal reporting tools.

IBM Global Technology Services implemented the hard-ware for the environment, delivered low-level ABAP devel-opment services, and provides ongoing support. Theproduction SAP application server runs under Microsoft®Windows® 2003 on two dual-processor IBM Systemx3800 servers, with several other System x machines han-dling the SAP development and quality assurance system, as well as a Web front-end. The underlying IBM DB2 database runs under AIX 5L on an IBM System p5™ 520 with two IBM POWER5+™processors.

Benefits of innovation■ Thanks to IBM’s end-to-end delivery of the new SAP

software solution, Redecard has been able to transformits business processes, increasing control, flexibility andtransparency in its financial systems and increasingoperational efficiency.

■ As a result of the new solution, Redecard will be able to reduce its total cost of operation by around$2.5 million over the next five years.

■ IBM outsourcing provides IT as a service, letting busi-ness users focus on core business tasks.

“ IBM has delivered a true end-to-end solution, encompassing everythingfrom initial design through to implementation and support—enablingRedecard to focus on business objectives, not technical issues.”– Manoel Correa, Financial Accounting Manager, Redecard


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Focus on Customers

Behr India


COPAN Systems

Convergence CT

Redecard

Centrinet

IM Group

Centrinet launches UK’s first operational zero carbon data center with helpfrom IBM

With the current legislative, economic and social backdrop, many companies are reviewing theirenergy use and looking at ways to cut power consumption

ChallengeCentrinet, a Lincoln-based organization that provides ITmanagement services, recognized that most UK data cen-ters were designed with business needs in mind, ratherthan the environment. It also recognized that reversing theemphasis was neither straightforward nor inexpensive andset out to devise a new solution.

Its unique idea was to build a data center designed to runefficiently on entirely renewable energy and to offer this asa hosting service to clients.

The facility was named Smartbunker, as it was built withina remote nuclear bunker, a relic of the 1950s Cold Waryears.

SolutionCentrinet’s business strategy was to power their 30,000sqft purpose-built data center entirely from renewable energy,and so they brought in Ecotricity, the wind turbine special-ist that offers clients a zero carbon tariff.

The solution proposed for Centrinet was based on the IBM Blade system, which integrates servers, networks,storage and applications in one-inch deep blades, whichsit in a rack like a bookshelf. They take up much lessspace and use less energy for the same computing tasks,which are important considerations given the physical sizeand environmental aims of Smartbunker’s operationalbase.

Benefits of innovation■ The products put forward by the other companies

could not match IBM’s in terms of performance, energyefficiency or reliability. The solution we chose will alsoenable us to expand the business very quickly, withoutany concerns about overloading our IT infrastructure.

■ We’re environmentally efficient through both our powersupply and the fact that the IBM computers are helpingus to cut our energy usage by about 60%.

■ Our base is underground within three-meter thick wallsin the depths of Lincolnshire, UK, so our physical secu-rity levels are exceptionally high.

■ We provide high-performance, highly-resilient managedhosting services with year round, 24x7 support.

“Right from our first dealings with IBM, we were very impressed,” says Kelly Smith, Managing Director at Smartbunker. “We were not an IBM customer prior to this, but we were aware of its green credentials, andthat undoubtedly helped.”


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Focus on Customers

Behr India


COPAN Systems

Convergence CT

Redecard

Centrinet

IM Group

Automobile importer IM Group provides its highly skilled staff with an ultra-modern workspace featuring sensor and actuator technologies from IBM andIBM Business Partners Cisco and AeroScout

IM Group generates 450 million annually with sales of Subaru, Daihatsu and Isuzu automobiles

ChallengeHaving established the IM Group’s headquarters in WestBromwich for over 30 years, the company was eager tomove to a more modern and cutting-edge facility. It haddiscovered a new location on the other side of its nativecity, and it was set on retaining its highly skilled workforcedespite the extra 20-mile commute. The company soughtnot only to reward its workforce with more flexible and effi-cient working conditions, but also to increase security forpremium vehicles in its inventory.

SolutionIBM teamed with IBM Business Partners Cisco andAeroScout to implement an IBM Location Awareness andSafety (LAS) solution. The system is based on Cisco hard-ware and AeroScout hardware and software, underpinnedwith IBM WebSphere® and IBM System x platforms.

Helping transform employees’ workdays, the solution usesAeroScout’s radio frequency identification (RFID) tags tospeed access to the parking lot, open and close doorsautomatically and automate time sheet entry. Digital monitors—installed by IBM Business Partner QEDAdvanced Systems—list important scheduling informationoutside meeting rooms.

Benefits of innovation■ Retained its highly trained staff■ Increased employee productivity with new scheduling

systems■ Enhanced security for highly desirable automobiles

“ We needed assistance from somebody who had a lot of experience in RFID. We called onIBM, and it is from that beginningwith IBM that we now have astate-of-the-art RFID system inside our new building.”– Phil Williams, IT director, IM Group Ltd.


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Focus on Customers


● Integration

● Performance

● Solutions Built withApplication Providers

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Executive Summary/Introduction >

Midmarket Challenges > Protect and Grow YourBusiness >

Accelerate Time-to-Value of IT >

Focus on Customers >Executive Summary/Introduction



Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries

Östgöta Brandstodsbolag

Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group

MineralbrunnenÜberkingen

Barbecue Plaza sizzles with one-day SAP ERP implementation using IBM System i InstallOption for SAP Business All-in-OneBarbecue Plaza Co Ltd in Bangkok, Thailand, operates successful restaurants under the Bar B QPlaza (Mongolian), Joom Zap Hut (Thai) and Fire Place (Japanese cuisine) names

ChallengeThe highly successful Barbecue Plaza restaurant chainwas relying on self-developed software that provided lim-ited reporting functionality. Until recently, managers reliedon manual systems to report on the business. Financialand inventory data was extracted from self-developedsoftware, which by 2007 was almost 20 years old. Withoutup-to-date information, materials management at the cen-tral food warehouse was neither automated nor optimized,requiring more management resources than necessary.Barbecue Plaza wanted to reduce inventory, increase effi-ciency and prepare for international expansion.

SolutionBarbecue Plaza selected an integrated solution based onSAP ERP 6.0 applications including financials, controlling,materials management, sales & distribution and productionplanning functionalities, running on an IBM System i 520server. To reduce the implementation time, costs and com-plexity, Barbecue Plaza chose IBM System i InstallOptionfor SAP Business All-in-One an approach which delivereda ready-to-run SAP software environment in just one day.

Benefits of innovation■ IBM System i InstallOption for SAP Business All-in-One

delivered a working solution far more rapidly than con-ventional installation.

■ Barbecue Plaza is able to forecast restaurant demandmore accurately, helping to reduce central inventorylevels and cut wastage.

■ Detailed trading data allows costs, turnover, profitabilityand productivity to be analyzed.

■ New business process information allows BarbecuePlaza to prepare franchise expansion plans throughoutthe Asia-Pacific region.

“ IBM System i was clearly the bestoption for Barbecue Plaza, givingus a secure platform that is easy tomanage. It was also very fast todeploy, thanks to IBM System iInstallOption for SAP Business All-in-One.”– Neerada Choopojcharoen, Business Development

Executive, Barbecue Plaza


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Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Informa realizes up to seven times faster performance with next release ofIBM Informix Dynamic ServerInforma is a leading provider of custom data management solutions in Belgium, the Netherlandsand Luxembourg

ChallengeInforma helps companies ensure that data is immediatelyaccessible and up to date whenever users need it.

Facing rapid data growth, Informa customers need tolower the cost of storing and retrieving data, while still pro-viding users with uninterrupted access. And as companiesbuild even more demanding applications, Informa expertsmust help them maintain rapid response times.

SolutionFor more than 20 years, Informa has helped companiesbuild resilient, high-performance information infrastructureswith IBM Informix® Dynamic Server (IDS). Now by com-bining IDS 11 with IBM System p and System x servers,Informa will enable its customers to turbocharge applica-tions, grow capacity and increase workload, while slashingtotal cost of ownership. Informa estimates that its cus-tomers will be able to handle 300 percent more data or 30 percent more database instances without adding DBAsby upgrading to IDS 11 from the previous version.

Web services that previously couldn’t access data due totime-outs are now capable of running with almost nodelay. Additionally, IDS 11 is helping improve queryresponse times. In one case, a job that took 36 minutes torun can now be completed in approximately 7 minutes.

Benefits of innovation■ 30 percent reduction in administrative costs■ 30 percent reduction in hardware requirements■ 20 – 40 percent reduction in application development

time and cost■ 10 – 15 percent reduction in total cost of ownership■ Up to seven times faster response times using the opti-

mistic concurrency feature■ Solidified value proposition for increased sales and

greater customer retention

“ With IDS 11, IBM has enhancedperformance and manageability,and lowered total cost of owner-ship even further to make it theclear winner against Oracle andother database vendors.”– Rob Prop, Manager Professional Services, Informa


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Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Alok India weaves new levels of integration into its business with IBM and SAP

Alok offers world-class integrated and state-of-the-art production facilities for home textiles, wovenand knitted apparel fabrics, garments and polyester yarns

ChallengeTextile manufacturer Alok found that its vertically integratedmanufacturing process was not mapping well to its distrib-uted IT systems. Local variations in software and databaseplatforms caused difficulties when reconciling group inven-tory and financial position. With exponential growth beck-oning in the vibrant Indian economy, Alok managerswanted to speed information flow, enable advanced busi-ness intelligence and increase operational efficiencies.

SolutionAs the company grew, IT teams at each of the company’slocations had gradually modified the company’s businessmanagement software to suit its particular needs. To meetthe need for better management control in the IT land-scape, Alok chose to replace these existing Windows-based business systems, and became one of the firstcompanies in its industry to implement a centralized solu-tion based on the SAP ERP 5.0 application, running on theIBM System p5 platform. The solution delivers fast, accurate, group-wide business information and enablesAlok to take better advantage of enormous growth oppor-tunities in the Indian economy.

Benefits of innovation■ The decision for IBM technology was based on a com-

bination of value, return on investment and total costsof operation.

■ The IBM System p5 servers enabled Alok to implementa highly robust solution with the ability to grow rapidlyat attractive price points.

■ The service and support from IBM has been superb,fully justifying our decision to partner with them.

■ Shared data has removed the need for slow andexpensive manual reconciliation of financial and inven-tory positions, providing accurate figures to manage-ment for improved decision-making.

“ With group-wide information onsales, production and materials,Alok can squeeze inventory levels,improve production efficiency and,ultimately, deliver a better serviceto customers.”– Shaji Varghese, Head of IT, Alok


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Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


JRG Teamed with IBM to make major headway in improving theirInfrastructure availability

One of the leading brokerage houses in India

ChallengeSaddled with 15 stand-alone servers, JRG’s complex datacenter was becoming unnecessarily difficult and time-consuming to manage. In addition, JRG lacked a central-ized storage solution and instead maintained a sprawlingenvironment of disparate disk systems. Moving forward,the firm wanted to simplify its infrastructure, but withoutsacrificing high availability and supreme performance levels.

SolutionTo regain control of its IT environment, JRG Securitiesteamed up with IBM Global Technology Services. The IBM group implemented four IBM BladeCenter® HS20servers in a BladeCenter chassis and launched a fleet ofhigh-performance System x servers. Additionally, Global Technology Services created a centralized storageenvironment by deploying an IBM System StorageDS4300 disk system, which attaches to the servers via anIBM TotalStorage® SAN Switch.

The storage solution also connects to an IBM TotalStorage3580 Tape Drive Express Model device, which performsdaily backups of critical data.

Benefits of innovation■ Can help simplify the client’s computing environment

without sacrificing performance or availability■ Helps improve response time to customers■ Helps firm provide a highly reliable service to its

customers

“ IBM solutions have helped us tomake major headway in improvingour infrastructure availability.”– Jomon Joy, assistant vice president-technical, JRG

Securities


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McGregor Industries adopts a new business model with IBM and SAP

McGregor Industries Inc. has a distinguished history in the North American hosiery industry

ChallengeTo maintain its ability to compete in an increasingly globalbusiness, McGregor needed to move out of the manufac-turing business and focus on sourcing product from arange of off-shore contract suppliers. Its existing legacyERP system was manufacturing-focused, so the companyneeded to rethink its IT infrastructure and realign its busi-ness processes.

SolutionMcGregor consulted IBM Global Business Services to finda new ERP platform that could meet its changing businessneeds.

Working with IBM Global Business Services, McGregorimplemented the IBM Express Wholesale Distribution solu-tion, a qualified SAP Business All-in-One partner solution.The solution runs on three IBM System x3650 servers andis supported by an IBM DB2 database. IBM GlobalTechnology Services is providing application managementservices, and IBM Global Financing helped to package thesolution—including hardware, software and services.

Benefits of innovation■ IBM System x server hardware has proven to be a

good investment. Running Linux, it delivers all the per-formance we need at much lower cost than most com-parable UNIX platforms, and the reliability has beenconsistently excellent.

■ The choice of an open source operating system shouldgive us considerable flexibility for the future.

■ SAP Business All-in-One solution from IBM includeskey industry functionalities out-of-the-box, enablingrapid deployment with a minimum of costly customization.

“ As a small IT shop, we wanted apartner that could help us withevery aspect of our environment –and no company in the industryhas more comprehensive expertisethan IBM.”– Chris Gain, Vice President of Systems and

Technology, McGregor Industries




Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group



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Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


IBM and 3Com integrate IP telephony with core business process applica-tions to reduce costs at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM)Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM), a specialized, California-based privatecollege with four campuses and seven satellite locations.

ChallengeUsers at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising(FIDM), in California, were getting frustrated juggling multiple devices to handle phone, fax, email, instant mes-saging and Web communications. The school has nearly6,000 full-time students, 1,000 staff and faculty membersand more than 30,000 graduates.

FIDM needed to reduce telephone costs and implement avoice-over Internet protocol and unified messaging systemto move the school into the future.

SolutionThe institute turned to IBM and IBM Business Partner3Com to help replace its legacy private branch exchange(PBX) telephone system and achieve two key objectives -minimize the number of servers required to run IP teleph-ony and integrate its collaboration software applications—IBM Lotus Notes® and Sametime®—with IP telephony.

For FIDM, moving from a traditional phone environment tointegrated VoIP meant replacing costly asynchronoustransfer mode (ATM) lines with cost-effective, multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) ones. The FIDM networkequipment was updated to support this implementation.Six PBXs were replaced with System i IP Telephony CallControl, Messaging and Conferencing voice applicationsrunning on the existing IBM System i570 12-way with ninedynamic logical partitions (LPARs).

Benefits of innovation■ FIDM has saved over 50 percent on its monthly costs,

about several thousand dollars a month.■ It also is saving 70 percent in local trunking costs to

PRI (primary rate interface).■ The institute simplified its infrastructure with an all-in-

one business computing platform and is able torespond to business recovery situations faster.

■ It now has a foundation for FIDM growth over the nextdecade, with an expected return on the initial invest-ment in two years.

“ The IBM and 3Com solution has proved itself as a reliable, secure platformto run the FIDM business.”– Roxanne Reynolds-Lair, Chief Information Officer, Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising


22ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Motion Industries Limited gains best-practice solution with SAP software onIBM System iMotion Industries Limited is New Zealand’s leading supplier of bearings and power transmissionproducts and services

ChallengeReducing inventory levels was a key objective for MotionIndustries Ltd, as this would release capital and help to cutadministrative and operational costs. Sales forecasts,which would help Motion Industries Ltd match supplierproduction and inventory holdings more closely todemand, were produced manually using ad-hoc reportsgenerated from existing software, a time-consuming task.The management team also wanted to introduce activity-based costing (ABC), to help understand and remodelbusiness processes. ABC capability was not available inthe existing software package, which had already beenextensively modified, and it would have required significantdevelopment effort to create the necessary functionality.

SolutionMotion Industries Ltd implemented two IBM System i520servers, one for production and the second for test anddevelopment purposes. The second i520 also acts as adisaster recovery server; should catastrophe strike and theprimary server be disabled, a mirrored copy of current dataand applications is available for resumption of operationson the remaining server.

“The key to the new system is its simplicity,” says JustinReay. “We were pretty daunted by the idea of changing toa new ERP system, and with all the unknowns, there wasa good deal of change management involved. MotionIndustries Ltd was supported by IBM, who did a great jobin assisting us with the IBM System i server sizing andimplementation, and by Soltius, who provided ongoingsupport for the SAP software configuration.”

Benefits of innovation■ Reporting, analysis and control of stock is now based

on accurate sales-forecasting data generated automati-cally by the SAP software.

■ Lower inventory levels release capital for use elsewherein Motion Industries Ltd, and automated report produc-tion has eliminated costly manual processing tasks.

■ The extensibility and scalability of the SAP software andthe IBM hardware has positioned Motion Industries Ltdfor the next step in extending its information to bothcustomers and suppliers.

“ One of the key benefits of running SAP software on the IBM System i plat-form is that you eliminate database administration altogether by using theIBM DB2 software integrated in the operating system.”– Justin Reay, IT Manager, Motion Industries Ltd.


23ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Östgöta Brandstodsbolag consolidates its infrastructure with virtualization onIBM BladeCenterÖstgöta Brandstodsbolag is part of Länsförsäkringar AB, an alliance of 24 independent, customer-owned regional insurance companies in Sweden

ChallengeAs an independent insurer, Östgöta Brandstodsbolag mustcompete with much larger organizations. Its competitiveedge lies in its combination of a strong local market pres-ence with fast, efficient customer service. To keep its pric-ing competitive, Östgöta Brandstodsbolag constantlylooks to trim costs from its operations, while improvingservice levels.

Östgöta Brandstodsbolag had 28 stand-alone Intel®processor-based servers from a variety of vendors, eachwith separate software licensing and management costs.Sven-Olof Lundström, IT Manager, says: “Most of ourservers were running at low utilization, so we were effec-tively paying to power and maintain computing resourcesthat were doing little useful work.”

SolutionÖstgöta Brandstodsbolag engaged SYSteam AB, an IBM Business Partner, to design a more compact, efficientand cost-effective IT infrastructure. SYSteam delivered asolution based on IBM BladeCenter, IBM System x andIBM System i technologies.

Services running on the 28 old machines were virtualizedand now run under VMware on just four IBM BladeCenterHS21 blade servers, each with two dual-core Intel Xeon®processors, housed in a single IBM BladeCenter chassis.The chassis provides shared power, cooling, DVD drives,switches and systems management for up to 14 disklessblade servers, supporting approximately 1,400 users inmore than 30 locations.

Benefits of innovation■ By reducing costs, increasing performance and avail-

ability, and enabling new servers to be deployed atlower cost and higher speed, Östgöta Brandstodsbolaghas gained a more sustainable model for IT.

■ The solution has reduced the acquisition and mainte-nance costs for hardware, and freed up skilled IT stafffrom routine maintenance.

■ The consolidated BladeCenter and System x andSystem i environment has eliminated a vast amount ofroutine, low-value administration.

■ Specialists can now focus on higher-value work: sup-porting business users and developing new services.

“ Moving to virtualized Microsoft Windows servers on IBM BladeCenter sig-nificantly simplified and optimized our infrastructure.”– Sven-Olof Lundström, IT Manager, Östgöta Brandstodsbolag


24ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Kyocera Mita achieves 1,000-fold increase in information delivery speed withIBM Systems solution for SAP NetWeaver BI AcceleratorKyocera Mita Corporation of Japan sells commercial document management and imagingsystems, and manufactures office printers and digital copying machines

ChallengeSenior executives at Kyocera Mita wanted information tobe available in near real-time: the global digital imagingmarketplace changes rapidly, and senior executivesrequested delivery times of less than 15 minutes—notpossible with the existing infrastructure.

SolutionKyocera Mita implemented the IBM Systems solution for SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Accelerator, a pre-configured combination of SAP applications and IBM BladeCenter and IBM System Storage hardware.

The IBM BladeCenter features six Intel Xeon processor-based HS20 blade servers for production and qualityassurance, running the 64-bit SUSE Linux EnterpriseServer operating system. The BladeCenter is attached toan IBM System Storage DS4700 Express disk array, stor-ing a maximum of 3.8TB of data using the IBM GeneralParallel File System.

Benefits of innovation■ After the switch to SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator,

results were returned in 1.04 seconds for the majorfeatures stock report and in 9.38 seconds for the fullstock report—more than 3,000 times faster, a dramaticincrease in performance.

■ Massive improvements in the warehousing and ship-ping detail reports times were also achieved, from 420 seconds down to 1.5 seconds, almost 300 timesfaster.

■ The development of new business strategies can nowbe based on full and immediately available analysis ofdata, helping Kyocera Mita win in the global market-place.

“ We wanted immediate access tothe pertinent information, and theability to make management deci-sions with the exact figures at ourfingertips.”– Katsumi Komaguchi, President, Kyocera Mita


25ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Storage virtualization heralds the end of planned downtime at GwinnettCountyOffering more online access to their systems has created the need to operate around the clock.

ChallengeThe county’s storage needs were growing rapidly. Newapplications drove the need to store more data. And themove from server-attached storage to centralized SAN-based storage also contributed to rising SAN storagerequirements.

“With our citizen self-service initiatives well under way, theability for IT to get approval for planned downtime has vir-tually disappeared,” says Barry Puckett, information tech-nology services manager at Gwinnett County. “Our Website is used extensively at all times of the day, and ouremployees use our internal systems over a much widerrange of hours than ever before. As a result, we have hadto rethink how we architect our systems, especially storage.”

SolutionThe Gwinnett County IT team needed to move to the newsystems without disrupting ongoing operations. Changesto storage systems are notoriously disruptive, requiring theIT team to negotiate outage windows with internal userswho must then plan for downtime.

SAN Volume Controller is a modular appliance based onIBM System x servers that can be configured in high-availability pairs. By virtualizing the storage environment,physical storage changes are hidden from applications.Multiple storage devices, even non-IBM devices, are sup-ported by SAN Volume Controller. By pooling capacityfrom multiple disk arrays, SAN Volume Controller helpsincrease storage utilization.

Benefits of innovation■ Application availability is no longer affected by changes

to the storage system, even during data migrations andmaintenance

■ Storage utilization is increased due to enhanced flexibil-ity to allocate storage to applications when and whereit is needed

■ Advanced replication capability of the IBM FlashCopy®feature improves data protection and the accuracy oftesting

“ Storage management with the IBM SAN Volume Controller is astorage administrator’s dreamcome true.”– Philip Wilson, Contract IT Architect, Gwinnett County


26ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Ateeco achieves real-time reporting with IBM System i and SAP All-in-One

Ateeco manufactures and distributes over 11.5 million pierogies a week in mixed varieties underthe “Mrs. T’s Pierogies” brand

ChallengeThe US food and beverage market is intensely competi-tive, with constant pressure to reduce prices. In order toretain margins, companies must find new ways to reduceoperating and production costs, through efficiencies ininventory management and enhanced sales and financialcontrol. Ateeco was looking for ways to automate andimprove production management, and turned to IBM andSAP.

The former system was slow to generate business report-ing that enabled managers to act fast and reduce costs.Batch processing, rather than real-time reporting was hin-dering the business.

SolutionTo handle the demands of the new SAP applications,Ateeco decided to invest in a new IBM System i 520, withthe older i820 handling the company’s email and otherapplications. DSS, an IBM Business Partner, helped toarrange the deal and worked with IDS Scheer and theAteeco team to implement the new solution.

Through tight integration with both the SAP software andits native operating system, DB2 for i5/OS keeps databaseadministration to a minimum, while allowing companies tobenefit from industry-leading features such as hardwarevirtualization with dynamic LPARs, and multi-platform sup-port for i5/OS®, AIX® and Linux.

Benefits of innovation■ End-of-month reports can be prepared 70 percent

faster■ Automatic upfront accruals make financial reports more

accurate■ Customer profitability and sales reports can be gener-

ated in real time, enabling quick decision-making■ Improved inventory control reduces expenditure on

stock and storage. The combination reduces totaloperational costs, and helps Ateeco stay ahead in thishighly competitive business

“ With SAP All-in-One software run-ning on the IBM System i 520 plat-form, Ateeco has increased controlover almost every aspect of thebusiness.”– Tim Coyle, IT Manager, Ateeco


27ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Advantage Group improves competitiveness and productivity with a solutionfrom IBM Business Partner Satyam Computer Services

Based in Toronto, Ontario, the Advantage Group Inc. helps companies build successfulrelationships with their customers

“ We didn’t realize how easy andcost-effective it would be to haveSatyam develop and implementour very own automated data pro-cessing solution. We wish wewould have done this long ago!”– Advantage Group Inc.

ChallengeAdvantage Group had been conducting its marketresearch programs using mail and spreadsheet-basedtemplates, which required heavy manual data processingonce completed. The time-consuming data entry andanalysis processes led to high costs, low productivity andinconsistent results. To help it accomplish its goals forexpansion and high-quality service, Advantage Groupsought an automated data analysis solution that wouldallow it to streamline and standardize its processes.

SolutionAdvantage Group teamed with IBM Business PartnerSatyam Computer Services Ltd. (Satyam) to deploy a solu-tion that enables the client to automatically process its sur-veys rather than having to manually enter each one, savingtime and resources. The solution gives Advantage Groupthe ability to quickly print lists and reports, helping it makeaccurate and timely business decisions. The solution runson three rugged and reliable IBM BladeCenter HS21servers.

Benefits of innovation■ Helps Advantage Group build its business with greater

control, more processing power, consistent businessprocesses and low operating costs

■ Reduces processes that once took the equivalent ofone full-time employee’s labor during one year to justone month

■ Gives the client a competitive advantage by speedingthe turnaround time for results


28ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

Barbecue Plaza

Informa

Alok India

JRG

McGregor Industries

FIDM

Motion Industries


Kyocera Mita

Gwinnett County

Ateeco

Advantage Group


Mineralbrunnen Überkingen implements SAP software on IBM System i andBladeCenterMineralbrunnen Überkingen-Teinach AG, based in Bad Überkingen, Germany, is a mineral waterand soft drinks company

ChallengeAs a manufacturer in the high-volume, low-margins foodand beverages sector, it is vital for MineralbrunnenÜberkingen to keep its production line running from 5amuntil 10pm every day—which means that its IT systemsneed to be online too.

To meet the needs of business growth, MineralbrunnenÜberkingen wanted to upgrade to the latest version ofSAP ERP, but its existing server infrastructure was notcapable of expanding to handle the increased workload.

SolutionIn supporting 300 users of the SAP applications, its exist-ing System i servers were reaching capacity, so the com-pany decided to perform a complete technology refresh.

Mineralbrunnen Überkingen worked with Fritz & Macziol,an IBM Premier Business Partner, to implement the newSAP ERP and SAP ERP HCM applications on a newSystem i 570 server, with test and quality assurance sys-tems running on an i520. The central SAP application envi-ronment is integrated with the company’s batch tracingapplications, which run on an IBM BladeCenter H withfourteen Intel Xeon EM64T processor-based HS21 bladeservers.

Benefits of innovation■ New SAP application environment is so successful that

Mineralbrunnen Überkingen can even provide IT serv-ices to external companies.

■ System i platform delivers a significant improvement inSAP application performance, with response times ofless than 0.5 seconds.

■ Reliable hardware provides near-100 percent availabilityfor business-critical production systems, leading toreduced downtime.

■ Operational costs have been reduced, which shouldlead to return on investment within 36 months.

“ POWER6 will be a very exciting step for Mineralbrunnen Überkingen. The new processors promise to provide even better performance whileconsuming less electricity—which should help to keep operationalexpenses to a minimum.”– Albert Haldenwanger, Head of IT at Mineralbrunnen Überkingen


29




Focus on Customers

Focus on Customers● World-Class Support with

Local, Vertical IndustryExpertise

● Reliability

● Ease of Use

30ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD

British Columbia MaritimeEmployers Association

Everton Football Club

Northwest RadiologyNetwork

Expeditie Thijs Weert

Organizer

Monitronics

Greece’s national Nissan distributor, NJT, drives costs down, service qualityup with dealer network built on IBM Lotus Domino

The first company to represent Nissan cars in Europe

ChallengeSelling approximately 20,000 cars a year nationwide basedon phone and fax procedures was time-consuming, costlyand required too many personnel—and there was no wayto track these exchanges. Further, the many businessprocesses that spanned the divide between distributor anddealers were frequently hampered by discrepant informa-tion because people were working in disparate systems.The lack of standardized practices, particularly in the serv-ice departments, also made it more difficult to ensure thatNissan standards were being met and customers werereceiving a uniformly high level of service.

SolutionTo achieve its goals, NJT implemented a Web-based solu-tion that employed IBM Lotus Domino, IBM LotusSametime and the e-On Retail Internet Exchange (RIX)application package from IBM Business Partner e-OnIntegration, which is built on the Lotus Domino platform, allrunning on IBM System x servers and IBM SystemStorage DS4700. The solution provides an online, real-time, 24/7 collaborative working environment for about1,000 users at NJT and its 130 dealers across Greece.

Benefits of innovation■ NJT has reduced the turnaround time to deliver and

fulfill a car order from 11 days to 7 days■ Dealers, who formerly depended on contract IT support

for their local system environments, are now supportedby an IT staff of six at Nissan headquarters in Athens.This has resulted in an overall 69 percent reduction indealers’ IT costs

■ The ratio of IT costs to total sales across the extendedenterprise is now just 0.21 percent, compared to aver-ages of 1 percent and 4 percent for businesses inGreece and the United States, respectively

“ I believe we have one of the bestsystems in the world. It helps usnot only to manage our businesswell, but to provide excellent serv-ice and additional benefits to ourend customers.”– Michalis Moraitis, CIO, Nic J. Theocarakis SA


31ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

IBM offers FranklinCovey a highly reliable solution for critical businessprocesses

FranklinCovey is a leading source of effectiveness training, productivity tools and assessmentservices

ChallengeAs its platform for back-office systems neared end-of-life,See’s IT group began to investigate new products thatmight deliver the reliability the company required. “Thesesystems must be available when we need them,” saysSee. “Downtime could mean a problem when running pay-roll, conducting our financial reporting or maintaining sup-ply lines for our catalog, e-commerce and retail sales.”

See wanted to make sure that a new system could offereven stronger support for Oracle along with robust hard-ware reliability. “We previously used a clustered environ-ment that could help ensure a certain amount of uptimeand recoverability,” says See. “We were looking for a product that could deliver the same or better level of availability.”

SolutionAfter considering products from several vendors,FranklinCovey contacted IBM Business Partner SiriusComputer Solutions to explore IBM products that might fit the company’s needs. See’s team selected theIBM System p5 570 server in part because of its reputa-tion for reliability.

The System p5 570 server features mainframe-inspiredreliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features thathelp keep businesses running around the clock. Anoptional redundant service processor; hot-plug, hot-swappable and redundant components; IBM Chipkill™ECC and bitstring memory; and dynamic deallocation ofsystem components enable technicians to modify andservice system elements without bringing businessprocesses to a halt.

Benefits of innovation■ The IBM System p5 server offers highly reliable per-

formance plus simple scalability and exceptional flexibil-ity through logical partitioning (LPAR) capabilities

■ The SAN Volume Controller can help FranklinCoveyretain its current storage investment while helping tosimplify management of heterogeneous storage systems

“ We know that as we grow as acompany, the p5-570 can growwith us.”– Dan See, Director of Infrastructure, FranklinCovey


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Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

Ferdinand Gross meets just-in-time demands with high-availability solutionfrom IBM

Ferdinand Gross is a medium-sized German wholesale company, selling a vast range of fasteningcomponents, tools, workshop supplies and factory equipment

ChallengeTo help provide the kind of high availability often associ-ated with much larger companies, Ferdinand Grosswanted to implement a new release of its database soft-ware but found that its database vendor would no longersupport the company’s existing UNIX platform. FerdinandGross took the opportunity to review its complete operat-ing systems and hardware platform strategy.

Ferdinand Gross considered moving to a MicrosoftWindows platform but determined that it would not be theright solution in terms of performance and licensing costs.

SolutionWorking with messpo GmbH, an IBM Business Partner,Ferdinand Gross implemented four Intel-based IBM System x servers—a combination of two- and four-socket machines—running database and applicationservers and a domain controller under SUSE LinuxEnterprise Server.

To help ensure reliable storage of production databases,Ferdinand Gross selected the IBM System StorageDS4200 (formerly FAStT200), linked by fiber channel con-nectors to the System x servers, and to a separate clusterof servers that manage stock information. With dual-activeRAID controllers, the DS4200 supports full redundancyand transparent failover, helping to protect valuable busi-ness data and keep systems running.

Benefits of innovation■ Significant improvement in database performance■ Linux environment can grow flexibly and at low cost■ Availability and disaster recovery improved by RAID-

protected storage area network, second data center and server clustering; highly robust, reliable IBM System x servers meet the needs for continuousavailability

“ As a whole, the IBM solution hasgiven us a flexible, open environ-ment with the capacity to grow tomeet our needs in the future.”– Olaf Abt, IT and Organization Manager, Ferdinand

Gross


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Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

GUTBROD: in good shape with IBM

The GUTBROD group develops and produces ready-to-install punched and shaped parts as wellas assemblies and components for safety or crash protection for the automotive industry

ChallengeGUTBROD has witnessed above-average growth in thepast years and the number of islands of solutions in the ITenvironment has risen in parallel. This heterogeneous land-scape called for extensive knowledge of hardware andsoftware support. Necessary interfaces were missing andthis led to data redundancies and a lack of comprehensivedata and system management control. GUTBROD neededto consolidate a heterogeneous IT landscape, implement aSAN and realize a disaster recovery concept.

SolutionTOTALe Südwest is the partner who was responsible forthe concept and implementation of the overall solution.This provider of solutions and services for professional ITcovers the complete IT infrastructure from the networkthrough servers, storage and backup systems to the entireperiphery and software.

Two System i5 units in separate data centers help ensureredundancy of the ERP system; one DS6800 disk storageunit functions as the central and highly available data poolfor all servers and the OS.

Benefits of innovation■ GUTBROD has a redundant SAP landscape on sepa-

rate systems. This change is part of the disaster recov-ery concept that the manufacturer is consistentlypursuing to meet the same standards in the IT environ-ment as it has in its production environment.

■ Walter Stotz is pleased to say that, “Even the bestquality management is only partly effective without anoptimally established IT landscape. In combination withthe open architecture of the DS6800, the integratedbusiness System i5 solution offers us all the prerequi-sites for realizing a quality disaster recovery solution forour OS worlds.”

“ With realization of the disasterrecovery concept consisting ofSystem i5, DS6800 and SAN tech-nology, we have set the course forthe future and this gives us secu-rity as we are facing furthergrowth.”– Walter Stotz, the IT/ Organization Manager of GUT-

BROD Stanz- und Umformtechnik


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Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

IBM and Compugen help British Columbia Maritime Employers Associationconnect employers with workers

The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) provides a large range of servicesto waterfront employers on the west coast of Canada

ChallengeThe dispatch component of the association’s operationhas grown considerably over the past few years. “We usedto consider ourselves more of a labor relations organiza-tion,” says Greg Vurdela, director of information servicesand corporate secretary for BCMEA. “But we have cometo realize that a primary part of our business is helpingemployers and labor find each other.”

BCMEA needed to design and deploy a new IT infrastruc-ture for an innovative labor dispatch system that matchesemployers and workers in ports throughout westernCanada; achieve outstanding performance, high availabilityand scalability for the dispatch system.

SolutionBCMEA selected three IBM System x 366 servers, running in a cluster, to provide the processing power for the complex dispatch system. The x366 also offershigh-availability technologies that are designed to deliverthe uptime that BCMEA requires. Features such as lightpath diagnostics, IBM Predictive Failure Analysis® andIBM Active PCI-X technology can help the BCMEA teamanticipate potential problems before system availability isat risk.

BCMEA selected two IBM System Storage N5200 modu-lar disk storage systems to create a storage area network(SAN) that can pool storage and create a redundant envi-ronment for the dispatch system.

Benefits of innovation■ The IBM System x 366 servers are designed to deliver

the performance, availability and scalability required tosupport the dispatch system.

■ Features such as light path diagnostics, IBM PredictiveFailure Analysis® and IBM Active PCI-X technology canhelp the BCMEA team anticipate potential problemsbefore system availability is at risk.

■ The IBM System Storage N5200 storage-based SANcreates a redundant storage environment that can offerboth fast disk speeds and high availability for around-the-clock access to information.

“ These IBM products give us thesolid foundation we need for build-ing our dispatch system.”– Greg Vurdela, Director of Information Services and

Corporate Secretary, BCMEA


35ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

Everton Football Club hits the target with TALENT Sport and IBM System i

Everton Football Club’s previous ticketing system offered insufficient performance and lackedreliability

ChallengeEach time the overnight backup completed, the systemwould force an automatic reboot—but fail to restart cor-rectly once a week on average. “If the ticketing systemwas down at opening time, then the ticket office wouldeffectively be out of action for perhaps an hour,” com-ments Andy Ward, Head of Ticketing at Everton FootballClub. “Not only did that represent potential lost revenues,but also we risked alienating our customers by leavingthem standing in the queue or waiting on the telephone.”

SolutionEverton implemented TALENT Sport from IRISSoftware4Sport on an IBM System i 525 server with twoIBM POWER5+ processors. IRIS Software4Sport providesticketing and CRM solutions to almost 40 sports clubsincluding Liverpool FC, Newcastle United FC, Rangers FCand Manchester City FC. The System i server platformprovides a fast and efficient solution which is scalable tomatch each club’s growth requirements.

Benefits of innovation■ Unscheduled downtime practically eliminated, enabling

improved customer service■ High performance of IBM server enables management

reports to be run with minimal impact on live ticketingoperations

■ Packaged solutions from IRIS and IBM offer lower total-cost of ownership. Unscheduled downtime practicallyeliminated, enabling improved customer service

“ During October we saw a hugeincrease in the amount of onlineticket sales. We put this down tothe service being so much moreuser-friendly with TALENT Sportrunning on IBM System i.”– Andy Ward, Head of Ticketing, Everton Football Club


36ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

Northwest Radiology Network builds resilience with IBM System x and IBM System Storage solutions

Northwest Radiology Network is a healthcare organization that provides comprehensive diagnosticreporting services

ChallengeNorthwest Radiology’s new director of information technol-ogy quickly realized that the company’s existing IT infra-structure was vulnerable at multiple single points of failure,and that the mission critical diagnostic reporting functionlacked redundancy in the supporting systems. NorthwestRadiology turned to IBM Premier Business Partner SIS fora new infrastructure solution.

SolutionThe company replaced seven existing servers with a clus-ter of two IBM System x3650 servers, load balanced overfibre channel connections. The environment was virtualizedwith VMware and expanded to include 15 virtualmachines. For shared data storage, the company chosethe IBM System Storage DS3400.

Benefits of innovation■ The IBM solution has helped eliminate single points of

failure from critical IT infrastructure■ Consolidated storage hardware and expands storage

space■ Simplified systems maintenance and management■ The solution has also given Northwest Radiology the

ability to scale to accommodate future growth

“ Thanks to IBM, we now have ahigher level of confidence in ourability to deliver services with fewersingle points of failure.”– Marty Buening, director of information technology,

Northwest Radiology Network


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Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

Expeditie Thijs Weert takes delivery of an enterprise-class solution

Expeditie Thijs Weert BV is a logistics and transportation company that operates throughout theBenelux region

ChallengeWith no automatic link between delivery vehicles and itslogistics center, Expeditie Thijs Weert lacked real-timeinformation on the status of deliveries. This made it difficultfor the planning department to schedule deliveries in themost efficient way, and led to delays in reporting back tocustomers on the location of their goods. They neededfaster, more automated reporting about delivery of con-signments, to enable better scheduling, remove manualadministration and provide real-time information on deliverystatus.

SolutionExpeditie Thijs Weert selected a track-and-trace applica-tion running under the Linux operating system, and lookedfor a new hardware platform. “The ability of the i520Express Edition to run Linux alongside our core i5/OS sys-tems made it the ideal solution.”

The new i520 Express Edition has one logical partition run-ning i5/OS and one running Red Hat Linux AdvancedServer V3—and can automatically reallocate the process-ing resources between the two different operating systemsas required. An Integrated xSeries® Server (IXS) inside thei520 running warehouse management and transport con-trol solutions under Microsoft Windows 2003 Server.

Benefits of innovation■ Single, easy-to-manage platform for all business

systems■ Real-time information on consignment status■ Improved efficiency through faster scheduling■ High reliability translates into low IT costs and excellent

resilience for business-critical systems

“ The service from IBM is excellent,and very well-adapted to the sizeof our business. There is a ten-dency to think that IBM can onlyserve large enterprises.”– Kevin van den Boom, Project Manager, Expeditie

Thijs Weert BV


38ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

Organizer moves to a single server solution with IBM System p

Based in Oslo, Norway, Organizer offers Internet-based e-mail, groupware and calendaringsoftware

ChallengeTo support its fast growing business, Organizer hadexpanded its IT capacity by adding more physical servers.The architecture was not easily scalable, and the moreboxes the company bought, the more expensive, time-consuming and impractical it became. Faced with growingmaintenance costs and falling reliability, Organizer wantedto migrate to a simpler, lower-cost platform that wouldoffer higher levels of services to its customer base.

SolutionOrganizer worked with IBM Business Partner WebDeal ASto select a new platform to host its online services. Thekey selection criteria were: high availability and reliability,ease of management, high scalability and low maintenanceand software licensing costs. WebDeal proposed migratingto the Linux operating system to provide a low-cost yetvery stable and robust solution, and recommendeddeploying SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 on a new IBM System p5 520 Express – OpenPower Edition server.

Benefits of innovation■ Estimated 70 percent reduction in TCO over three

years■ Reduced physical footprint in data center■ Autonomic technologies enable high availability at low

cost

“ By migrating to Linux on the p5-520, we estimated that wecould reduce our hardware and IToperational costs by up to 70 per-cent over three years.”– Kjartan Lodden, CEO, Organizer


39ibm.com/systems




Focus on Customers

NJT

FranklinCovey

Ferdinand Gross

GUTBROD





Organizer

Monitronics

Monitronics: Enhancing customer security and service with a unique businessmodel

Monitronics is a security alarm company in the United States

“ The responsiveness that the sys-tem gives us, enabled by technol-ogy as well as through our peopleand processes, are the keys to ourcustomer service and retention.”– Charles Reilly, CIO, Monitronics

ChallengeMonitronics wanted to improve service to its securityclients, enhance its ability to respond to market changesand grow its market share. To do this, the companyneeded a new system that would better support its cus-tomer needs and empower its dealer network by integrat-ing and extending administrative and service capabilities.

Monitronics has been using a suite of internally developedapplications to extend its monitoring and business applica-tion, but the overall solution is nearing the end of its usefullife and the company decided it was time to move on.

SolutionTeaming with IBM Business Partner Sirius and IBM,Monitronics rolled out a new security software suite thatgives dealers direct access to customer data, enablingthem to provide faster, better customer service.Monitronics customers benefit from a local, more personalservice relationship, combined with the accuracy, reliabilityand safety of a leading national security service.

Monitronics elected to purchase MASterMind, a leadingapplication suite from GE Security. The new application isdeployed on IBM BladeCenter, IBM eServer xSeries, IBM System x servers along with IBM System Storage andIBM TotalStorage hardware and IBM Tivoli StorageManager software.

Benefits of innovation■ Extends enhanced customer service functionality to the

dealer network■ Increases capacity to support more customers and

grow the business■ Improves responsiveness through real-time and near

real-time processing of customer information■ Reduces customer attrition through effective informa-

tion management■ Improves performance, stability and reliability


For more informationIBM can help midmarket clients compete successfully by ensuring operational excel-lence, financial health and outstanding customer value with IBM systems, storage,software, services and financing. IBM can help clients transform their IT infrastructureto meet strategic goals now and in the future.

IBM delivers business value with a portfolio of offerings and capabilities to help mid-market clients protect and grow the business, accelerate time to value of IT andconcentrate on delighting customers. To learn more about IBM products, servicesand financing alternatives, please visit: ibm.com/systems

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2008

IBM Systems and Technology GroupRoute 100Somers, NY 10589

Produced in the United States of AmericaJune 2008All Rights Reserved

IBM, the IBM logo and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trade-marks of International Business Machines Corporation in the UnitedStates, other countries, or both. If these and other IBM trademarkedterms are marked on their first occurrence in this information with atrademark symbol (® or TM), these symbols indicate U.S. registered orcommon law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information waspublished. Such trademarks may also be registered or common lawtrademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is avail-able on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” atibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml

Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of IntelCorporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States,other countries, or both.

Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in theUnited States, other countries, or both.

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United Statesand other countries.

Other product, company or service names may be trademarks or servicemarks of others.

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