Retailer signs two-for-one deal with communications provider Foehn.  Foehn furnishes Habitat with £1M WAN overhaul, delivering better store communications and lower operating costs.

London, England - 13 May 2011

Managed communication provider, Foehn, announces a deal with furniture retailer, Habitat to improve its store communications and simultaneously reduce its operating costs, through a £1 million IT network infrastructure overhaul. The new network will be deployed through a multi-phase programme across the UK, France, Spain and Germany and is due to be completed in March 2012.

Since its foundation in 1964, Habitat has grown to become a premium brand of furniture products through its expanding footprint of 70 plus retail stores across the UK, France, Germany and Spain, and its online store and franchise agreements. The new upgrade will improve fault identification, repair and performance for the retailer and replace Habitat's legacy wide area network (WAN) which had been built using three separate network providers.

As part of the deal, Habitat will move from its legacy multi-carrier WAN infrastructure to a more cost-efficient, managed Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) WAN with a single carrier backbone and 3G back-up. Foehn will help to deliver significant cost savings against Habitat's legacy WAN by building out a fully managed solution, on a fabric of DSL, EFM and Fibre Ethernet connectivity from tier 1 carrier Global Crossing and Cisco 3G back-up technology.

Foehn was chosen after an extensive tender process because they could deliver a layer of service to roll out and properly manage the WAN beyond the level that would be achieved by working directly with a telecoms provider. Mark Gardner, the group head of Business Information Services, commented: "My past experience left me in no doubt that if we were going to get the most out of our WAN, we would either need to directly employ more resource to manage it or utilise the services of a capable managed service provider that could do so on our behalf."

He added: "Foehn were the stand-out candidate for a number of reasons. Firstly, the technical fabric of Foehn's proposal stood out, not only as the most cost effective, but also the one which would achieve the optimal level of service improvement and availability. Secondly, their highly pragmatic commercial model meant that we would minimise parallel run costs through the migration process and still realise the performance benefits where most needed quickly. Finally, Foehn provided a clear roadmap that meant that the WAN would become a solid foundation for Habitat to move onto other business initiatives that will recover further costs and improve on communications, such as VoIP and video training."

Habitat's WAN transformation is part of a complete overhaul of Habitat's IT business infrastructure. Foehn's proposal comprised an end-to-end solution, including managing change with the existing WAN providers and taking responsibility for LAN improvements. This meant Habitat could fully leverage Foehn's skills and telecoms experience to mitigate the risk and burden of work that would have otherwise fallen on the Habitat team. Mark concluded: "From the outset, Foehn identified themselves as the best placed specialist to focus on the WAN transformation. They also clearly outlined how they would engage existing and future parties to deliver Habitat's application and hosting services, which gave Habitat the flexibility to select the best-in-class solution providers available to meet the challenges ahead."

Jeff Curley, business development director at Foehn, states: "We are pleased to have emerged from a rigorous selection process against numerous quality companies as the partner of choice for this transformation programme. Our experience and understanding of the unique challenges confronting distributed retailers, our solid in-house technology capability and our powerful tier 1 carrier relationships were all major factors in us being able to present the best solution."

He added: "For Habitat's investment, we are delivering them a lower operating cost with greater performance, adding network resilience at each store and giving granular visibility of the network's status. Combined, these improvements give them a solid assurance that electronic transactions will complete and enables a roadmap for further IT initiatives - all within a flexible commercial arrangement that allows Habitat to accommodate future business change."

 About Habitat

Habitat was launched in 1964 after Terence Conran, a young furniture designer, decided he wanted to offer furniture that was cool, contemporary and affordable. Many of Habitat's lines are created exclusively for Habitat by world class designers so they won't be found anywhere else. Habitat sell a number of furniture items including, sofas, beds, side tables, rugs, lighting, mirrors and accessories. www.habitat.co.uk