CPI, a major European book printing specialist, has chosen to host its customer platform, (called Highway) in Interoute’s cloud. It will also switch the wide area network that supports the Highway platform to Interoute’s pan-European network. CPI Books has 20 locations across Europe, with 17 factories across seven European countries, five of which are located in the UK.
Following successive acquisitions, CPI wanted to unify its information systems and enable seamless communication between its 17 plants, to enable better management of print demand and production capacity. Highway’s interface was created to connect the production system (ERP) for each plant. To host this portal and link the sites together, CPI needed a European operator that could to take care of all its requirements through one integrated infrastructure, giving enhanced service and lowering the burden of supplier management.
Interoute provides hosting services in its Paris Data Centre, close to the headquarters of CPI, and has a back-up solution in London, where most of the IT team of the printing group is based. The entire Highway client platform has been migrated onto Interoute’s Cloud infrastructure resulting in a substantially faster user experience for those accessing the ordering system.
CPI opted for a full Managed Services contract with Interoute, to have dedicated teams available 24-hours a day, 356-days a year offering a stable solution to its users. In addition, Interoute is migrating CPI’s sites onto its MPLS VPN network platform. CPI will benefit immediately as the migration does not interrupt service and each site is fully integrated into the new solution once live. CPI took this opportunity to review all its sites bandwidth requirements, and the move to Interoute resulted in a 50% increase in bandwidth speeds combined with a 20% reduction of the total bandwidth cost.
Antony Morin particularly valued the skill and responsiveness of Interoute’s teams, as well as their ability to innovate which has been demonstrated by their delivery of a long-term strategy for CPI. Once all sites are connected to the Interoute network, CPI will consider deploying additional services, leveraging the capabilities of the network and using the platform to review VoIP and video conferencing contracts.
Gilles Fabre Country Manager at Interoute France, states “We are delighted to have CPI as a customer, and this project is indicative of our expertise in linking European sites, and combining hosting services and advanced networking. We are excited about this collaboration and satisfied that Interoute is able to inspire confidence in both the European groups who choose us, but also to their customers: with strong references from customers in demanding sectors such as Financial Services."
