The Customer
Big C is a retail giant headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. Thailand's second-largest market operator, Big C has stores in 4 countries—Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It’s a well-established brand, operating since 1993. Today, Big C runs over 1,300 stores of different formats and sizes, including hypermarkets, plaza-style marketplaces, convenience stores, and pharmacy/health and wellness stores.
Mini Big C gets a Big Upgrade
Mini Big C is a convenience-style store open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Big C operates over 580 Mini Big C stores throughout Thailand, providing the convenience of an always-open local store, selling over 3,500 products used in daily life.
The store stocks leading brands, along with its own-brand label “Big C”, offering excellent value for the cost. The stores mainly sell small items and offer a strong point of difference from other convenience stores by also offering a range of fresh meat, dairy, fruits, and vegetables. Mini Big C is a very popular retail destination, with hundreds of new stores being opened annually.
Because Mini Big C is always open, it needs a network that is always on. In busy high-turnover convenience stores, fast and easy payment for customers is a necessity, so the Mini Big C stores needed dependable connectivity for their Point of Sale (POS) terminals, as well as a wireless Access Point (AP) and server, in each branch. When upgrading the Cisco switch that was being used at each location, they had to be sure they were getting a high-quality solution. Reliability and durability were top of the requirements list. “We needed a reliable switch, suitable for our 24-hour business,” says Mr. Sudrak Ngodngam, Assistance Vice President of MIS Technology at Big C. He continues, “At Mini Big C, we provide continual customer service 24/7, nationwide. If any network problems occur, they must be solved incredibly quickly.”
Enter the Allied Telesis CentreCom FS980M/28 Fast Ethernet Managed Access Switch. Cost-effective and fully managed, this flexible switch was the solution Big C had been looking for.
The FS980M/28 Provides Always-on Connectivity
Big C purchased 300 Allied Telesis FS980M/28 switches. Flexible and robust, the FS980M Series provides total security and easy management. These high-performing switches deliver connectivity for customer payment, wireless network access, and the digital stock management and delivery applications running at each store.
One FS980M/28 is now located at each of the 300 Mini Big C stores. Each FS980M/28 connects with multiple POS machines, servers, and APs.
A Reliable and Durable Solution With Total Support
“These new switches easily support our POS and inventory management applications, and provide a robust and stable data network for our sales operations,” says Mr. Ngodngam. “Plus, the five-year warranty not only ensures the quality of the product, but it also lowers our ongoing maintenance costs. We are really impressed with the new Allied Telesis switches, as well as with the pre- and post-sales support we have received.”
FS980M Series switches provide Big C with a full set of security features to ensure always-available access to their store management systems, as well as confidence that their customers will have the fast, easy payment experience they’ve come to expect.
The network has been running perfectly with no issues since it was implemented, a fact that is especially impressive considering the large number of locations and devices involved in the project.
Future Plans with Allied Telesis
With new Mini Big C stores opening all the time, the corporation plans to purchase another 300 to 400 FS980M switches per year. In fact, the company is so pleased with Allied Telesis products’ quality and support, it is now considering Allied Telesis L2 and L3 network solutions for a number of new Big C Supercenter stores in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Allied Telesis looks forward to supporting Big C with world-class products, solutions, and training, to assist their sales operations for many years to come.