X

Metke Remodeling & Luxury Homes, a residential remodeler based in Lake Oswego, Oregon, has been in the business for over 30 years. However, they faced challenges in keeping up with the changing expectations of the construction industry. One of the major issues was the inability to provide clients with up-to-date scheduling information. The company used to provide schedules created in Microsoft Excel, but these schedules were often outdated almost as soon as they were printed due to material delays, change orders, or other unforeseen issues. This led to client dissatisfaction as they struggled to understand why they were not informed about the latest schedule. Another challenge was the lack of centralized systems and processes, leading to disorganized and frustrating searches for documents across the organization.

Moderno Homes, a third-generation family-owned home building company based in Lakeville, MN, was facing challenges in managing its growing operations. The company was transitioning from traditional methods of operation, such as using green books and spreadsheets, to more modern and efficient methods. The rapid growth of the company was outpacing their ability to manage operations effectively, particularly in terms of scheduling and communication. The company, operating as project managers, had to constantly sync with subcontractors, trade partners, designers, and clients to keep projects moving. The existing scheduling system was inefficient, leading to a lack of transparency and accountability. The company's coordinator, Jake, was overwhelmed with the constant changes in the schedule, preventing him from being proactive in his role.

Tom Williams Residential, a custom home builder based in Atlanta, Georgia, faced several challenges in managing their construction projects. The team, consisting of three project managers, an admin, and a bookkeeper, was tasked with completing numerous custom home builds, renovations, and remodeling projects every year. However, the process of managing project information was disjointed and inefficient. If Tom Williams, the founder and owner, needed to find out which subcontractor performed a certain task on the job site, he would have to call his bookkeeper, interrupting her day and forcing her to look through the books for a purchase order or receipt. This process was time-consuming and resource-intensive. Additionally, the lack of a centralized system for project information made it difficult to keep track of project progress and budget, leading to potential delays and cost overruns.

Access Professional Systems, a leading installer, designer, and integrator of security and process automation solutions, was facing a challenge in tracking and understanding their customer interactions. The company was receiving organic phone calls from their website and Google My Business page, but lacked a comprehensive system to analyze these interactions. John Herrera, a marketer at Access Professional Systems, was seeking a solution that could provide detailed insights into customer interactions, including the ability to tag, listen, and prioritize phone calls. The challenge was to find a platform that could offer a high transcription rate and provide a new perspective on interpreting customer data.

Brand Ranch Media, a Texas-based marketing agency, was committed to providing transparent and accountable services to its clients. The agency was keen on proving its return on investment (ROI) to clients and optimizing ad spend. However, the challenge was to accurately track the source of leads and phone calls, identify trends, and reallocate funds from inefficient parts of the media mix to those yielding better returns. The agency also wanted to provide its clients with immediate access to insights from customer calls and prospects, which was a time-consuming process. Furthermore, they aimed to improve the quality of their client's customer service and frontline teams without having to manually listen to every call.

Sara Johnson, the Marketing Manager of Dental Health Associates (DHA), a multi-location, physician-owned practice based in Madison, Wisconsin, faced a significant challenge. Despite investing heavily in digital marketing and events, it was difficult for the dentists to see the value in these efforts. Furthermore, Sara was unable to identify what was attracting patients to the practice. The main issue was the lack of visibility into the effectiveness of their Google ads. While they could see when someone clicked on an ad, they had no information about what happened after that click. They didn't know who these people were, which ones became leads, and whether they ended up calling the practice.

Top Notch Garage Door, a company servicing around 45 houses per day, specializing in both residential and commercial work, faced a significant challenge in tracking and analyzing customer calls. The company, founded in 2009, had always aimed to provide quality service at an affordable and fair price. However, the economic downturn at the time of their inception meant that customers were shopping for the best deals, making it crucial for Top Notch Garage Door to optimize their marketing strategies. The company needed a way to understand what was being said on both ends of the customer calls, to improve their marketing and customer service.

Core Group, a consumer technology retailer, was faced with the challenge of integrating its ERP system with an international consumer electronics supplier's APIs to provide the required customer service. The complexity of the integration project necessitated a solution beyond an out-of-the-box approach. Core Group's CTO, Roey Saban, initially considered a bespoke integration solution for their SYSPRO ERP system. However, during the investigation of middleware options, he was introduced to the Flowgear integration platform. Core Group then requested proposals from different vendors and system integrators, evaluating them based on several criteria.

Credo Books, an educational book publisher and retailer, faced a significant challenge when they set up their e-commerce site. They needed a solution to integrate online orders with their other business systems – IBS Bookmaster, a publishing-specific software solution, and Sage Evolution for financial management. The company was using industry-specific applications but also needed to integrate those systems with their accounting and other systems. This integration was crucial for automating their core customer order transactions, a process described by Wilhelm Viljoen, COO of Credo Books, as 'integrating our core transaction process.' The challenge was to find a solution that could seamlessly integrate these different systems and automate as much of the customer transaction process as possible, given that Credo Books operates as a lean organization.

Electronic Communications Network (ECN), a rapidly growing telecommunications network provider in South Africa, was facing a significant challenge in integrating its various line-of-business applications with the SAP Business One business management software. ECN operates a converged next-generation network over a number of mediums including copper, fibre, and microwave, and offers a unique 'one network many services' approach. While it uses SAP Business One as a management system, it also has a number of customized industry-specific applications that enable it to operate its networks, provide customer service, and manage aspects of the business. The information from these systems needed to be integrated with SAP Business One so that the company could have 'a single source of the truth' for the information. However, integrating these systems with SAP was not an easy task.

The Ian Martin Group, a leading recruitment and project-staffing firm based in Toronto, Canada, embarked on a business transformation project in 2014. The company aimed to modernize its processes to align with the evolving business landscape of the 21st century. As part of this transformation, the company decided to implement best-of-breed solutions, Bullhorn for candidate management and Zendesk for customer support. However, the challenge lay in integrating these two systems to maximize their benefits. The company needed a solution that was not only effective but also easy to use and flexible. The integration solution had to be such that it could be understood without intensive training, and it had to provide agility and speed of development.

Keenondots, a Dutch Cloud Automation Platform provider, was faced with the challenge of integrating disparate systems to provide a seamless experience for its resellers. The company's core service offering is a virtual delivery platform for cloud services, which includes licensing and billing functionality. However, the customers required the integration of Odin Service Automation with Autotask IT Business Management software. This integration was necessary to provide a reliable system for resellers offering licenses and services. Initially, Keenondots considered the Microsoft Flow application but found it was not sophisticated enough to deliver the solution they wanted.

Leatt Corp., a leading designer, developer, and distributor of personal protective gear for sports, sought to expand its business by integrating an e-commerce portal, NuORDER, with its SAP Business One management software. The goal was to increase its reach in the North American online consumer market and provide a wholesale distribution capability to the business. However, the company faced a challenge in ensuring the seamless integration of data between the two platforms as soon as NuORDER went live. They explored various integration solutions, including those from SAP, but none met their specific needs. The company needed a solution that did not require a high level of technical skills and was suitable for a mid-size company like Leatt.

Storm Distribution, a distributor selling products via their e-commerce portal and through national building suppliers, was facing a significant challenge when they decided to change their logistics service provider. The company did not manage stock themselves, instead, they relied on a third-party logistics supplier to handle and ship goods to customers. The challenge was to automate the integration of data between the new logistics provider’s warehouse management system (WMS) and the company’s Sage accounting system. Additionally, Storm Distribution accepted orders electronically from national building suppliers, like Builders Warehouse, and this process also needed to be automated. Without automation, it would be a laborious process to capture and update information, and the possibility of errors would be high.

As one of North America’s largest banks, BMO has adopted a digital first strategy to power financial progress and continually meet the needs of its customers in a rapidly evolving market. The strategy is centered around technology-led innovation that delivers reimagined banking services and drives best-in-class customer experiences while optimizing operating efficiencies. To support this, BMO relies on a hybrid technology stack spanning on-premises data centers and public cloud services. However, traditional approaches to log analytics would make it difficult to access timely insights and create a productivity drain due to the reliance on time-consuming manual processes. BMO wanted to unlock real-time insights from the enormous volume and variety of observability data being produced across this dynamic and distributed technology stack.

BNZ, one of the four largest banks in New Zealand, was looking to expand its market and attract a younger, more digital-savvy customer base. To do this, it launched YouMoney, an award-winning online banking platform designed to provide a customizable, user-focused financial management experience. However, supporting this modern digital banking approach required BNZ to adopt a cloud-first strategy, migrating away from on-premises environments and deploying all new applications to the cloud. This resulted in an increasingly complex hybrid infrastructure that posed new challenges for the bank. BNZ needed to manage and monitor this infrastructure to prevent any technical issues that could disrupt customer interactions. It also needed to optimize user experiences, which meant frequently rolling out changes without risking downtime. To achieve this, BNZ required end-to-end visibility into all customer transactions at a granular level, across each touchpoint, and the ability to quickly identify the root cause of any issues.

BT, the UK's largest mobile and fixed broadband provider, faced significant challenges as it expanded its consumer division with the integration of EE. The drive to develop new mobile services for customers necessitated deep visibility into their constantly evolving IT environment. The BT Digital team was determined to rapidly identify and rectify problems, ensuring the availability and stability of crucial EE services. The challenge was to reduce outage times and digital incidents, which were impacting the customer experience and the EE brand's bottom line. A one-second impact on the customer could result in a 7% reduction in conversion rate, highlighting the critical need for efficient problem resolution and stable service delivery.

Clario, a rapidly growing company in the healthcare industry, found itself grappling with an increasingly complex, hybrid environment due to a series of acquisitions. Each acquisition came with its own technology stack and toolchain, adding to the complexity of the existing legacy systems and cloud platforms. The situation was further complicated as Clario began migrating towards a cloud native architecture running on Kubernetes, with plans to transition these workloads to AWS. The use of disparate monitoring tools to manage IT performance resulted in a lack of observability across all business departments and IT environments. This made it challenging to identify, understand, and resolve any anomalies or performance issues promptly, thereby hindering innovation and optimization of user experiences. Clario recognized the need to standardize its CI/CD processes and consolidate its monitoring and management solutions into a single DevOps toolchain.

Dubai Customs, a leading customs administration globally, was facing challenges in managing the performance and availability of its digital services. The organization relied on a variety of legacy monitoring solutions, many of which were native to its infrastructure spanning traditional data center and private cloud environments. Development teams used their preferred testing tools to ensure new builds met the required standards before being released to production. This fragmented approach resulted in delays to innovation and performance blind spots, often leaving Dubai Customs unaware of problems until customers reported them. A key concern was the performance of Mirsal, a collection of mission-critical applications used to process the movement of goods in and out of Dubai. Any failure in these applications could lead to long delays and tailbacks at the border, potentially causing commodities with a limited shelf-life to spoil.

Kroger, the largest supermarket chain in the United States, embarked on an aggressive digital transformation about five years ago to enhance its limited digital presence. This transformation led to a shift to a hybrid, multicloud environment, incorporating Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and on-premises infrastructure. Consequently, Kroger's IT stack became increasingly dynamic and complex, making it challenging to monitor and manage. The company identified a need for greater observability into its environment to ensure its digital teams could access the insights they needed to deliver seamless digital experiences to customers. Additionally, Kroger's monitoring team, known as the 'Captain America Truth and Justice' team, sought to establish a common language for problem resolution to expedite the process.

loanDepot, one of the largest non-bank mortgage lenders in the U.S., has been successful due to its customer-centric loans platform that digitally captures and validates applicant's banking and asset documents and information. This technology-driven transformation has enabled the company to create a revolutionary digital-first approach, simplifying and speeding up transactions. However, as loanDepot's digital offerings grew, its infrastructure and operations became more complex. The company needed a way to move to a more scalable hybrid cloud technology stack, integrate core systems, and deliver new products faster, without affecting the customer experience. The challenge was to maintain its competitive advantage by continually optimizing the customer experience.

Migros Bank, a Swiss bank with over a million customers, was founded on the principle of providing fast, easy, and human banking. As the market became more digitalized, the bank aimed to bring more of its customers online while maintaining its values by offering reliable and intuitive digital banking services. These services were powered by applications built on a hybrid technology stack, including an on-premises private cloud environment running on Kubernetes and RedHat OpenShift, as well as a legacy mainframe. The complexity of this hybrid technology stack made it challenging for Migros Bank to understand how backend changes impacted front-end experiences on its digital banking platforms, including critical processes such as customer onboarding and e-banking. The bank's services relied on multiple third-party applications and its own in-house software, but these remained a 'black box.' Migros Bank needed end-to-end visibility across its entire application stack for effective collaboration internally and with external suppliers to find solutions when problems arose.

Pasco County, Florida, with a goal of becoming the premier county in the state, aimed to deliver services that exceed customer expectations, build trust, inspire confidence, and promote accountability. With a growing population of digitally savvy citizens, it was crucial to ensure that the county’s digital services were world-class, reliable, and resilient. However, as the county continued to digitize its services, it faced an increased risk from cybersecurity threats. The county needed to adopt measures to ensure the integrity of its systems and protect sensitive citizen data. Pasco County also needed to modernize its internal operations and security processes. Teams previously worked in silos with their own toolsets, leading to blind spots and lack of effective collaboration. They also relied on complex manual processes, which increased the risk of problems that could impact citizen experiences and allow vulnerabilities to leave systems exposed. This made it more difficult to ensure services were available 24/7, hindering Pasco County’s mission and impacting its ability to build trust and enhance the agency’s reputation amongst constituents.

Photobox, Europe’s largest digital personalized printing company, faced a significant challenge in monitoring its diverse technology stack. The company relied on ten different monitoring and logging solutions across its stack, and teams had to manually check each of them to understand the end-to-end customer journey. Managing so many disparate solutions had become humanly impossible and costly to maintain, delivering little value. To understand an end-to-end flow, an engineer would have to look across multiple dashboards and manually build out a journey for a particular set of challenges. This process required about three or four hours of work to diagnose problems. Photobox wanted an all-in-one monitoring solution that could reduce that to just minutes by providing precise, actionable answers in one place, to help teams make faster, more data-driven decisions to optimize customer experiences.

Riyad Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in Saudi Arabia, embarked on a significant business transformation aimed at enhancing the digital banking experience for its customers. To support this initiative, the bank built a private cloud environment using Red Hat OpenShift, complying with local banking legislation that prohibits the use of public cloud services. As part of this transformation, Riyad Bank began migrating applications to a microservices and container-based architecture to maximize the value of its private cloud environment. This transition would enable the bank to innovate faster, create new digital banking solutions, and build a stronger competitive advantage. However, the shift to a cloud-native environment introduced significant new complexity, making it more challenging to deliver seamless digital banking experiences. The bank needed to maintain end-to-end observability into its applications to identify and resolve problems quickly, ensuring the best possible experiences for its customers.

Saxo Bank, a Danish bank specializing in online trading and investment, aimed to offer a market-leading trading platform that best supports the needs of individual investors as well as white-label partners, such as banks and management firms. Its platform connects to global stock markets in London, New York, and Tokyo, handling more than 800,000 different prices per second. To enable the high speed, low latency its platform needed, Saxo Bank built a fully on-premises IT stack, running on Multicast and Windows technology. However, to drive greater digital agility, it began to migrate towards a microservices and containerized architecture on Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Stack (AKS), in an on-premises private cloud. This migration brought significant complexity to its environment. The bank needed a single solution that could monitor across all technologies, reduce alert storms, and cut resolution times.

Skyworks, a high-performance semiconductor manufacturer, operates in a complex, multicloud and hybrid technology environment. The company has a footprint in every major cloud services platform, as well as its own on-premises data centers. This complexity made it difficult for Skyworks to obtain an end-to-end view across its applications. As the demand for wireless connectivity continues to grow, Skyworks needed to ensure it was ready to meet the needs of its customers and the world they connect as they constantly evolve. To do this, the company needed to increase its investments in new and emerging technologies such as 5G and improve its manufacturing and engineering processes through automation. However, to maximize the impact of its investments in automation, Skyworks needed a modern observability solution that could reveal how its applications integrate with one another and provide precise answers about how they can be optimized and kept secure.

Soldo, a leading spend management platform in Europe, offers organizations a simple, automated way to delegate, control, and track expenses for employees and departments. It helps finance teams manage budgets with real-time visibility over company-wide spending. To accomplish this, Soldo requires maximum uptime and performance of its software so customers can access it from anywhere and at any time. Its platform is built on a complex cloud-native technology stack, running in AWS and leveraging a Kubernetes-based architecture. Soldo also uses open-source code and adheres to agile and secure delivery practices to drive continuous innovation and align with strict financial services industry regulations. However, given the speed at which its dynamic cloud environment changes, and the prevalence of open-source code in its applications, Soldo needed to reduce the risk of vulnerabilities in its production environment, to keep its customers’ data and transactions secure. Achieving this was previously a challenge, as the company’s software testing practices and tools were mainly focused on pre-production. Each time its development and security teams discovered new zero-day vulnerabilities, they had to search for them manually.

Spirit Airlines, a major airline operator with over 200 aircraft and serving more than 90 destinations, was looking to expand its network and enhance its customer experience. The airline's technology team manages several mission-critical applications that power the customer experience and support internal operations. These include various cloud-based online and mobile commercial applications that support customer self-service options, from booking flights and managing trips to self-check-in and baggage-tag printing. The team also oversees operational applications used to manage the fleet and maintenance crews. The challenge was to resolve issues in these applications quickly, using capabilities beyond traditional eyes-on-screen monitoring procedures. They also needed increased visibility into the customer journey and the third-party applications integrated with its services.

TSB Bank, the seventh largest retail bank in the UK, was seeking to expand its digital services to its over five million customers. The bank had built a modern banking platform on AWS, IBM Cloud, and BT Cloud to support customers across all key channels, including mobile, where 90% of servicing transactions are completed and over 70% of sales are done. However, the transition to a dynamic multicloud architecture introduced rising complexity across its IT environment. To manage customer expectations and provide best-in-class banking experiences, TSB needed a new approach to monitoring. The bank required an all-in-one solution that could provide full-stack observability into its multicloud environment, offering a single source of truth around customer experience.