Historic Futures Solidifies Its Customer Base by Improving Average Global Application Performance Over 500% While Saving 80% on Infrastructure

Historic Futures (HF) offers a unique Internet-based traceability service known as String, which is used by hundreds of businesses, including Gap, Levi’s, Tesco, and Wal-Mart. However, poor Internet performance in critical supply-base countries and regions, such as Bangladesh, China, India, and Southeast Asia, made the String application load at painfully slow speeds. This led suppliers in some areas to complain that the performance of String made the application unusable. As a result, HF’s customers struggled to collect data needed for traceability purposes. HF needed to improve global performance of its application or risk losing customers. HF’s IT team considered how it could serve the application locally in problematic regions. It evaluated some of the largest global hosting providers but found that each one lacked data centre presence in one or more core regions of the world. HF also concluded that building out its own global data centres would put too much strain on its limited IT resources and budget.

Historic Futures (HF) is a company recognised for its expertise in supply-chain traceability. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Oxon, UK, HF offers world-leading technologies and consulting expertise. The company’s unique Internet-based traceability service known as String empowers brands and retailers to visualise their entire supply chain, from primary production to finished product. Used by hundreds of businesses, including Gap, Levi’s, Tesco, and Wal-Mart, String helps these leading brands increase information levels across their supply chain, and assure customers that their product quality matches branding claims. HF's customers have established supply chains comprising hundreds or thousands of suppliers dispersed around the globe, sometimes in remote and developing countries.