Company
Alpargatas Europe achieves instant 50%+ drop in voice billing
In 2008, Alpargatas, the Brazilian footwear manufacturer, known for its famous Havaianas flip-flops, decided to transform the business model it operated worldwide from distribution networks to its own business.
The company chose Spain as its European headquarters for this new stage, establishing Alpargatas Europe, with Madrid as its first and main office for its launch on the continent. Growth into the rest of Europe has been continuous over the last eight years with Alpargatas currently present in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Portugal and Germany.
The expansion of Alpargatas Europe throughout the continent is managed on a technological level from their headquarters in Madrid, which supports and provides a service to all the regional offices.
The other part of the business is represented by permanent directly-operated stores and temporary stalls set up in shopping centres during the warmer months, given that the company’s star product - the Havaiana flip-flops - are seasonal. Similarly, Alpargatas has a portfolio of franchisees with both permanent and temporary sales outlets.
Critical communication
As part of this business growth process, making sure offices can communicate with each other is critical. When it was established in 2008, the company grew very quickly, which meant that neither the infrastructure nor the IT department’s set-up was able to keep up. This led to a serious imbalance, especially considering that Alpargatas Europe wanted the growth of its business to be supported by its technology and communications configuration.
In 2011, the company decided to redesign its IT infrastructure with communication as an essential element. Until then, there had been no interconnection between offices and each one operated independently, using different methods for connecting to central systems and accessing the ERP and shared software tools. “When I joined the company in 2011, my main mission was to create an IT department for the company. The first thing I needed to do was connect the offices and we contacted the company that was already providing the communications service for the head office in Madrid, Colt Technologies,” explains Adolfo Martín, IT Director at Alpargatas Europe.
The challenge for Colt was to support international growth in Europe using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) that would unify and support communications between the subsidiaries and head office, as well as with other central offices. The main motivation was the need to have a solid crash-proof infrastructure. The project to create a VPN took several months, until the change in lines took place in all the company’s countries. Since summer 2015, Alpargatas Europe has had a fully established, fully functioning private network and enjoys the reliability of working with Colt’s infrastructure.
Colt IP VPN provides a truly global solution thanks to its own dedicated fibre network. With its wide range of access options, all the organisation’s members can access their data and apps, regardless of their location. The offices enjoy safe access via VPN, which includes authentication and encryption without the need to install any additional software on the user’s device, and mobile employees have remote 24/7 access via their laptops, smartphones and tablets.In addition, by choosing between different redundancy options, the most suitable solution for the head office and regional offices can be selected.
Alpargatas Europe also placed its trust in Colt’s Internet access services. Colt understands that companies need much more than a mere Internet service provider, instead they require a partner that has broad and deep-seated capacity to help them achieve their goals.As for Voice over IP, Colt SIP Trunking offers a highly reliable service with options that include disaster recovery, fraud management, encryption and voice safety based on different connectivity options. It provides companies with risk-free growth from traditional telephony systems to VoIP, with services that include full legal compliance (routing of emergency calls, legal interception and number portability) in all countries, as well as an extensive set of functions.“Colt’s VPN at the heart of Alpargatas Europe fulfils its mission of facilitating the business and enabling growth. Trust and responsiveness to our needs are what we look for in our IT provider and that is what we have with Colt,” says Adolfo Martín
