Retailing in the UAE since 1988, Jacky’s Electronics is the country’s leading multi-brand consumer electronics retailer. The company opened its first retail showroom in Deira, Dubai and since then has grown steadily with 12 outlets across the UAE to date.
The challenge
As a growing organization with branches opening all over the UAE, Jacky’s Electronics needed to optimize the bandwidth of its network around the country, especially in its 12 retail outlets and remote warehouse locations. “This was our biggest concern at the time,” says Ashish Panjabi, Chief Operating Officer of Jacky’s. “We needed a solution that would effectively optimize bandwidth, maintain data integrity and protect our network against viruses and intrusion threats.”
Jacky’s found it expensive to keep adding new ADSL or ISDN lines each time a branch was opened, only to later realize that, in some cases, the lines were underutilized. Further, operating in a country with more than one telecom operator, and where each operated exclusively in various areas, posed an additional challenge. As Jacky’s grew to cover the entire UAE, Panjabi was concerned by the frequency with which data communication lines were congested and business critical information flowed at a slower pace.
“Our business relies on real-time transactions and data processing, which means that we could not afford to have a point of sale down due to bandwidth congestion. We needed to control content and protect against viruses,” said Panjabi. “It was essential for executives, managers and business decision makers within the company to make critical decisions, usually while travelling.” Jacky’s IT team deployed various hardware and software solutions and tools to better manage their network traffic and wide area network (WAN) connectivity to meet increasingly rigorous demand.
United Threat Management (UTM) solutions from numerous vendors had also been tested to varying degrees of success.
The solution
Jacky’s ultimately chose Dell SonicWALL, as it offered an all-in-one solution to meet the company’s numerous requirements. After an initial meeting and technical demonstration, Jacky’s decided to test Dell SonicWALL’s UTM solution for a brief period.
“We set up a prototype network environment mirroring Jacky’s live environment in the company’s Sharjah City Center premises,” said Shahnawaz Sheikh, Dell SonicWALL Middle East and Africa (MEA) regional sales manager. “After a few stress tests, it became apparent that there was a high degree of bandwidth optimization and real return on investment (ROI) within Jacky’s reach.”
The solution, which was deployed at 12 locations, was made up of a NSA 4500 appliance installed at Jacky’s head office and a TZ 180 appliance deployed at every remote location covering all branches and warehouse locations. The solution was implemented in every branch within a six-month period. Disruptions were minimal, as Dell SonicWALL initially deployed the solution in newer branches where volumes were smaller before shifting to larger, more data-intensive locations.
Jacky’s was then able instill policies and take appropriate action to stop deviant activity, control access to unwanted Internet sites and block unproductive protocols and ports to maintain high network and hardware integrity. The solution drastically enhanced Jacky’s network performance by easing congestion, controlling virus infection and filtering unwanted services. Viruses and intrusion were contained using security tools like IPS and gateway antivirus.
“In the first year of operation, Dell SonicWALL’s solution gained us an ROI of 15 percent, if the initial outlay is considered and will bring approximately 60 percent, in the long term on savings experienced from cost of data lines alone,” concluded Panjabi.
Today, Jacky’s in a situation where its top managers and business decision makers are constantly in touch with critical information they require to run and expand the business. With Dell SonicWALL, they can now work remotely and securely from anywhere to make business happen. “Accessing and acting on business and time critical information, securely, with Dell SonicWALL firewall and secure remote access in only a click away,” said Sheikh. “We look forward to forging a stronger relationship with Jacky’s, which is one of the leading visionary retail companies in the region.”
