Technology Services maps future IT strategy for ALPLA
Case Study
ALPLA is possibly the
biggest company you’ve
never heard of. Its products
can be found in almost every
household in the developed
world and it generated sales
of €2.84 billion in 2011. Yet it
is hardly a household name.
Challenge
The need for a global overview
The Austrian plastics manufacturer produces
packaging solutions for the world’s biggest
Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brands,
including Coca Cola, Unilever and P&G. From
bleach to motor oil, fabric conditioner to
ketchup, the chances are ALPLA designs and
manufactures the packaging. It has 148 factories
in 39 countries and continues to expand,
particularly in China and South America.
This global presence coupled with
increasingly close ties to its customers (many
of which have inhouse ALPLA manufacturing
facilities) presents several IT challenges.
The business has grown o the back of a
decentralized IT infrastructure, with local
data centers serving production and logistic
facilities all around the world. The result is an
infrastructure that is serviced by a mixed bag
of suppliers, inconsistent and hard to monitor.
ALPLA improves server
uptime and business continuity
by centralizing data centers
HPE Technology Services assesses the entire
business to develop a five-year IT strategy
Objective
Plan and execute a five-year
IT strategy to match global business
requirements, centralizing services,
improving server and email uptime
and establish new, state-of-the-art
data centers in two locations
Approach
Sought a supplier to provide a global
overview of its IT infrastructure. As a
long-time buyer of HPE servers, it sought
the advice from HPE Technology Servers
IT Matters
• Identified and prioritized 150
IT issues to be addressed, creating
proof-of-concepts for every step of
the transformation
• Created always-on access to global
email, improving communication and
speeding decision making
• Centralized global Microsoft® Exchange
server to reduce power, complexity and
management costs
• Removed local tape-based backup,
securing data storage with a
centralized system
• Modernized server fleet, increasing
availability meaning greater uptime
for business
Business Matters
• Created and executed a five-year
IT infrastructure strategy in line with
business requirements, securing
involvement of C-level management
• Consolidated supplier count, to
reduce management costs and
business complexity