Savers has expanded and modernized tremendously in the last decade. They added a call center located in El Paso, Texas to offer outsourced services to smaller charity organizations that did not have infrastructure in place to schedule operations like donation pick-ups and trucking operations. They had also expanded their headquarters in Washington and were supporting 10 regional distribution centers and warehouses. With all this growth, the company realized it needed to upgrade and modernize its network infrastructure, as well as enable mobility and mobile operations in its stores.
The IT team recognized that wireless capabilities would bring flexibility and mobility which were crucial for augmenting internal operations, and began to evaluate numerous solution providers. The IT team needed to move away from reliance on the WAN and move toward upgrading to a Wi-Fi solution that would also ensure continuous store operations. While the Savers IT team is comprised of more than 60 staff, the network team has four employees, making an intuitive and feature rich solution essential. Savers worked with Extreme reseller Datec to adopt Extreme as the wireless network standard across all retail stores and corporate operations.
“We are in the beginning phases of leveraging wireless retail operations and the ways Extreme’s solution can open doorways on the business side of the house. We have confidence Extreme’s retail features and access points with integrated Bluetooth will help propel our business to the next level and stay ahead of what our customers want. Understanding fully what Wi-Fi means to our customers, and how we can best serve them in the near future, will enable us to make shopping at Savers the best it can be.”
Charles Blair, IT Infrastructure Manager, Savers
