SD-WAN for Retailers

Creating the ultimate customer experience, whether in-store or online, is an expectation of today’s consumers. Retailers need cost effective, scalable, and resilient technology to innovate services, catch customers when they’re ready to buy and ensure business continuity.

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Common challenges for retailers

Until now, legacy WAN connections have been complicated, low bandwidth, expensive to maintain and painful to change. But software-defined networking changes everything. Adding a flexible software overlay on top of existing WAN hardware infrastructures instantly alleviates WAN complexity and makes it possible for IT to easily manage services over the network.

Innovation becomes business as usual with a cloud-based, software-defined WAN. Here are some of the common modernisation drivers in retail:

Preparation for the PSTN switch off in 2025
Lack of visibility throughout the network due to a mix of physical equipment throughout stores
Desire to make regular store changes
Reduce expensive maintenance costs
Decrease attack surface made by Point-of-Sale (POS) systems
Inconsistent customer experience throughout stores
Increase access to real time data
Integrate cloud-based products

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SD-WAN for retailers

In 2022, we won Cisco’s EMEA API & Innovation Partner of the Year award and Meraki’s Global Effects award for our use of infrastructure-as-code (IaC) in the delivery and management of SD-WAN solutions.

Our unique deployment methods using code allows us to activate new sites in minutes, instead of hours - reducing resource and increasing your ability to trade. Our in-house carrier division means you’re able to take advantage of any ISP and carrier to enable the best API-driven SD-WAN solution for your infrastructure or geographic coverage. In other words, wherever your users and applications are located, we can connect and secure them in the most cost and performance optimised way.

An SD-WAN with Focus Group will allow your business to:

Stabilise: eliminate common issues, keep stores operating for longer, identify root causes, deploy the best connectivity available at each store, create store operational independence and improve security
Standardise: Create a common blueprint, enable zero touch deployment, have predictable expenditure, centralise security and reduce cost of maintenance
Optimise: Implement automation, have access to real time data and reduce 1st line support tickets
Enhance: Deliver new customer experience requirements, adapt to new challenges and do the unexpected

Retail demands fast, reliable and secure connectivity – Focus Group provides unrivalled broadband for retail premises for businesses of all sizes and sectors, we can help you do more and achieve more, with speeds up to five times faster than other internet services!

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LAN and Wi-Fi for store branches

Stores are often operating with legacy, disparate systems bought and built over time, that have become expensive to operate and maintain. By modernising the LAN and Wi-Fi footprint within stores alongside your SD-WAN you will be able to manage your entire infrastructure through a central dashboard across all stores. Easing your ongoing operation costs, benefiting from the economies of scale when buying altogether and easing install as our engineers can fit all equipment across stores in one project.

Modernising your LAN and Wi-Fi will enhance the customer experience, helping you catch customers at the right time, as well as increasing your cyber security and creating a robust and resilient backbone for future innovation.

We recently enabled a major UK retailer to roll out a Cisco Meraki SD-WAN to 640 sites in just over 5 hours. In total, we enabled over 3,000 wireless Access Points, 100 cellular gateways, 944 LAN switches, 700 Meraki MX security and SD-WAN appliances.

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Cellular connectivity

Cellular failover is imperative for revenue protection across stores. With our in-house cellular division, Zest4, we can design and deploy the right connectivity mix to ensure your stores are always available to trade.

And with the new Meraki MG51 cellular gateway, you don’t have to wait for physical circuits to start trading! Activate new stores and deploy pop-up stores and temporary trading stands quickly and easily with our cellular connectivity design.

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Cameras and IoT

More retailers are using cameras and IoT devices to protect and increase in-store revenue. Your infrastructure can help innovate more of the business, from marketing to profit protection. With IoT and Computer Vision analytics you can:

Keep employees and stock safe
Monitor store performance
Improve product performance
Analyse consumer behaviour
Implement contextual marketing
Enhance data capture

Cameras and IoT devices can be managed through your central dashboard, making configuration and ongoing management quick and easy.

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Cyber security

Point of Sale (POS) attacks are most common in the retail industry due to its wide attack surface, so retailers have become a priority target. But, with more people making purchases or reservations from home, it’s imperative for retailers to address security holistically and ensure protection across the entire operation.

Our extensive experience working with retailers means we understand exactly what you’re up against. We will help protect your physical and cyber environments and meet all your PCI compliance and regulatory requirements.

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Voice for retailers

Using the right cloud telephony and Contact Centre technology is an essential component of customer service in retail. The solution best suited to your business will empower you to manage your branch, regional and head offices with rapid deployment, enabling you to make changes easily with low support overheads.

By embracing diverse technology, retailers can enjoy the benefits of solutions that fit the requirements of your teams based on their location and job roles. Here are some of the common cloud telephony and contact centre modernisation drivers in retail:

Lack of visibility across individual branch & brand performance
Integrate simple and consistent technology that enables business agility and drives cost efficiency
Improve call routing and overflow channels to help manage busy branches
Increase access to real time data
Enhance omnichannel customer service experience
Introduce new ways of communicating with customers, like WhatsApp, social media, chat bots

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Fully supported design, delivery and ongoing management

Our co-management ethos gives you back control of your environment but keeps the responsibility with us. And our unique code and orchestration methods helps reduce site visits during and after deployment, saving you time and money. Which means you can focus on using your new technology to create more value across the business.

Whether you choose our Standard or Enhanced managed services packages, our 24x7 Network Operation Centre is primed to support the demands of your retail operation.

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