DRIVING CHANGE AND INNOVATION
"It’s been a great experience both working for Subnet as a Senior Systems Engineer and subsequently as a valued tier one customer, the team are prompt, efficient and integrate well with our business.”
Chris Cheshire, National Manager Business Systems, Northline
Established in 1983, Northline is a privately owned and managed Australian business specialising in four major areas of service provision: road and rail freight management services; warehousing and distribution; global freight forwarding and mining; construction, oil and gas logistics. Northline is recognised as one of the leading logistics companies in Australia. The company has 13 branches across Australia, with their service centre located in Adelaide, South Australia home to 100 employees.
Northline has made it their company’s mission to become the market leader and provider of choice for logistics services in Australia through delivering uncompromising support and services to their customers. It is this dedication and commitment to excellence that first brought Subnet and Northline together. With a small in-house team managing all their technological requirements, Northline decided to outsource their ICT needs to a reliable and experienced provider in the hopes that it would reduce the total cost of ownership and increase the value and efficiency of their environment.
Subnet’s understanding of the commercial industry gained through decades of working with large multi-site companies, and for staff who expect reliable, fast and certified technological resources make us the most suitable ICT provider for Northline. Our continuing relationships with large tier-1 vendors who could provide Northline with unrivalled innovation and reliability was a pivotal point that influenced their decision to work with Subnet. Together with Northline’s National Commercial Manager, Angelo Carbone, Subnet’s Managing Director, Brett Lodge identified short and long-term critical pain points that needed rectifying.
Concerns:
In 2016, to take Northline into the future, Subnet was tasked with designing and implementing a complete end-to-end solution that included:
- Server, wired and wireless networking,
- Telephony infrastructure,
- Consulting,
- Managed Services,
- National site to site connectivity.
Most importantly Northline was looking to work with a partner who was willing to take accountability and ownership of their ICT environment, something they felt their previous provider was not providing. The company wanted a stable provider that understood their business and its working culture and could grow side by side with them while maintaining financial stability.
Post-implementation, Northline’s Commercial Manager and in-house IT team would require Subnet to manage their ICT environment and offer dynamic and scalable solutions to support their long-term business requirements. For a fast-growing multi-site business like Northline, scalability and effectiveness are essential as they guarantee that they are well prepared to efficiently handle the increasing number of customers and users within their company.
Amongst the list of projects Northline had for Subnet, was a Microsoft Office 365 migration. Northline wanted to keep their business agile, increase accessibility and adequately support their employees spread out across regional areas of Australia. The Office 365 migration would enable them to enhance communication in their organisation, allowing them to efficiently run their diverse business and continue to serve their customers well.
Northline also needed a complete rebuild and redesign of their Citrix environment to:
- Boost productivity,
- Leverage the new features in the latest version,
- Provide seamless access from any location,
- Reduce and simplify management.
As one of the leading providers of Citrix, Subnet was already on the shortlist of companies capable of undertaking such a large and vital operation.
With end-user customer experience being a key metric of the entire Northline operation, the telephony environment was highlighted as the most crucial.