HW Richardson Group
www.hwr.co.nz
Infrastructure Modernisation
Virtual Machine Migration
Data Centre Migration
Citrix Workspace ReArchitecture
Firewall ReArchitecture and Migration
With over 48 companies and 2,500 employees, the HW Richardson Group (HWR) is a major provider of transportation and logistics services in New Zealand. The company transports materials for the concrete, petroleum, transport, contracting, quarrying, and environmental sectors, with a focus on continually meeting evolving modern needs.
Inde has completed a range of projects for HWR and was recently brought onboard to lay down the foundation for their digital transformation. The team was facing significant technology limitations due to their legacy IT infrastructure, slow issue resolution, and a lack of strategic support.
Our team was selected for their infrastructure upgrade and migration because we were able to deliver the flexibility they needed, training to empower their staff, and better data insights. “I’d previously worked at a company where Inde was the vendor and they really go the extra mile,” said Daniel Wilton, IS Operations Manager, HWR. A key goal was for the organisation to use IT as a tool for growth and innovation instead of an obstacle.
Inde migrated HWR’s infrastructure to a hybrid cloud infrastructure, enabling the company to deliver a range of modern applications. This will also allow them to unify their systems across their companies for more efficient workflows and deeper insights.
“A big priority for HWR is customer focus. We want to upgrade our apps and systems with leading technology that will create a better user experience. The goal is for these to be strategically designed and aimed at the individual, which is something we couldn’t do on our legacy infrastructure,” explained Rick Gibson, Chief Information Officer, HWR.
During the planning phase, HWR and Inde identified two additional key areas of improvement. Our specialists upgraded and migrated their outdated Citrix Workspace setup to improve the end user experience across their programs. The technology can now do what it does best—provide seamless, secure access to apps, files, and desktops from any device. We also completed a firewall upgrade for better monitoring and control of network traffic.
“Inde were acutely aware of the business criticality that all production systems play in keeping HWR’s 24x7 business operational, and this was front of mind for all phases of the Infrastructure Modernisation project as unplanned downtime and outages were not an option,” said Jonathan Elliott, Otago and Southland Regional Director, Inde Technology.
HWR are on a digital transformation journey with their sights set on leveraging the latest technology to boost efficiency, gain valuable insights, and be an innovation leader in their industry. Migrating to a flexible hybrid environment enables them to start this transformation, giving them the power to consume more cloud-based services and modern technologies without any roadblocks.
“The migration was phase one, now we're on a technology path to leverage all the investment that we've made and break free of previous limitations,” Daniel explained. “Inde are up to date with the latest technologies and that’s incredibly important to the direction of our team.”
With an aging infrastructure, HWR were hamstrung and unable to adopt modern technologies and standardise systems across their 48 companies. The infrastructure migration we completed provides increased flexibility and opportunity to implement the latest technologies moving forward.
“Inde are now working closely with HWR’s team on the exciting digital transformation phase of their technology modernisation. The enhancements of this critical platform migration are proving invaluable, allowing HWR’s business to continue to move forward and adopt new approaches to their technology solutions and challenges,” Jonathan said.
“We're now set up for success. With our updated infrastructure, we can implement best-of-breed apps and roll them out across the entire group of companies.” - Rick Gibson, Chief Information Officer, HWR
“We're now set up for success. With our updated infrastructure, we can implement best-of-breed apps and roll them out across the entire group of companies.”
A lot of careful planning went into making sure that HWR’s team could get on with business without interruptions during the migration. Our specialists moved the servers in one phase and networking in another, making it easier to test and reduce downtime.
We did a lot of hands-on testing and process tweaking, as well as drawing on our experience, to deliver the best possible outcome. Hearing that many users didn’t even realise a lot of the activity was taking place meant all the effort our experts put in had paid off.
“Inde’s team, with close collaboration with HWR’s IT department, put a lot of work into planning and testing to make sure we experienced as little downtime as possible,” said Daniel. “Having such a seamless transition was a huge accomplishment for all parties and well appreciated by all HWR users.”
“The team at Inde are extremely skilled in teaching and empowering teams through a collaborative approach. Instead of taking control of everything, they upskilled our team so they could take ownership.”
As part of the infrastructure migration, Inde experts involved and trained the IT team at HWR so they can now quickly troubleshoot and resolve issues in-house within a couple of hours.
“Something that Inde pride ourselves on is ‘working with’ our customers IT teams. We are not here to replace the people who know our customers’ businesses and people best, we are here to provide the very best technical expertise to enable HWR’s IT team to succeed. A fundamental part of this approach is delivering training and upskilling to HWR’s team, and this will continue over the coming phases of their digital transformation journey,” said Jonathan.
“The team at Inde are extremely skilled in teaching and empowering teams through a collaborative approach. Instead of taking control of everything, they upskilled our team so they could take ownership.” - Daniel Wilton, IS Operations Manager, HW Richardson Group
With their sights set on improving various aspects of the business through technology, HWR’s innovation unit now has the foundation to do that. From reducing the carbon footprint of vehicles to minimising tyre wear, exploring alternative methods of fuelling vehicles, and improving efficiency in their offices and on the road, there are big things to come for the organisation.
“The updated infrastructure will enable us to adopt the right tools to manage our system and gain valuable data so we can know what's going on and be proactive,” said Rick
With a solid foundation through their upgraded IT infrastructure, HWR can pursue their digital transformation goals and we’re excited to come along for the ride. On top of the migration, we’ve also put tools in place, such as Aternity, Logic Monitor as well as utilizing Azure tools such as ARC to help their team gain information about user experience, automate processes and report – alert on system performance to identify opportunities for optimisation.
“Inde select leading experts to support their clients and have a passion for making sure they solve problems. It’s been a real privilege to deal with them.” Daniel Wilton, IS Operations Manager, HW Richardson Group
Are you interested in learning more about upgrading your IT infrastructure? Drop us a line and we'll get a discussion started.
