LiteOptec is a leading importer and distributor of outdoor, camping and sporting goods in South Africa, Africa and the Middle East. LiteOptec’s world class products include top brands such as Maglite flashlights, Gerber multitools and knives, National Geographic optics, Coleman camping products and many more. The company employs over 40 people and supplies retailers and wholesalers from its head office in South Africa.
The problem
LiteOptec’s IT hardware and infrastructure were aging, and the company was constantly facing downtime and accessibility issues due to load-shedding in the country. Their main business application SAP, an enterprise resource planning system, was on an older, outdated version and the company wanted to move to SAP Business One (B1).
This led the company to investigate the best way forward without incurring high IT costs and to reduce LiteOptec’s exposure to power failures. In addition, LiteOptec was dealing with six different service providers and when something went wrong their IT manager had to call each provider to find the fault with each one blaming the other. This resulted in more downtime which the company could not afford as it affected their bottom line.
The solution
“Zinia understood our business requirements up front and came up with a solution that worked for our business and budget, they also landed up saving us money in the way their structured and consolidated our IT services.” – Natalie Ralphs, Group Financial Director, LiteOptec.
After conducting a full audit of their current infrastructure, service providers and costs, Zinia recommended the following:
A managed cloud server solution (infrastructure-as-a-service) in Azure to host SAP B1, with backups and secure firewall. Therefore, LiteOptec did not have to purchase expensive infrastructure to move to the latest SAP solution, and they did not have to worry about management and maintenance of the hardware. The firewall solution also provides secure connectivity between the office and Azure as well as for remote users who leverage direct VPN to the secure Azure environment.
Zinia Managed Services to monitor and manage LiteOptec’s 26 workstations, 2 servers and 1 Firewall, as well as managed backups and Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR). LiteOptec now has the assurance that routine IT maintenance and management is being done including regular patch management for security, as well as active monitoring of its IT environment. Zinia automated all the routine maintenance and patch management with its ZMS solution, ensuring that Liteoptec’s IT maintenance is efficient and effective. In addition, with fast direct-to-cloud backups and EDR the company has protection against security breaches and unforeseen threats.
“Zinia are the perfect IT partner for our business because they are very customer-focused, solution oriented and provide a high-level of service.” – Natalie Ralphs, Group Financial Director, LiteOptec.
The benefits
- Consolidation of services under one roof provides LiteOptec with faster resolution of problems, better rates and a highly responsive service
- Reduction in downtime due to managed services offering
- Support the company’s IT manager with fast diagnoses of incidents
- A highly secure and compliant IT infrastructure
- Cost savings due to consolidation
- Productivity improvement due to increased uptime
“I am impressed with the level of expertise, responsiveness and reliability of the Zinia team.” – Natalie Ralphs, Group Financial Director, LiteOptec.
