For a large “big box” retailer with over 1500 locations nationwide, a satellite network serves not only as a means of business continuity, but paid for itself during normal operations with a digital media application.
Requirements: The mega retailer’s marketing department had a plan to deploy multiple flat panel displays in stores to reinforce their brand and increase sales. The challenge was that the marketing group was competing for budget dollars with the IT department who had a mandate to implement a business continuity solution to support critical transactions for a large multilane point of sale system, as well as back-office and applications.
Solution: To meet both requirements, the company deployed a customized VSAT satellite network combining both digital media and business continuity applications on a single platform. During normal operations the stores’ T-1 lines serve as the primary link for all point-of-sale and back office traffic while the satellite provides multicast delivery of content for in-store digital signage displays. In the event of a terrestrial link failure, the digital signage application reverts to cached content, while all critical point-of-sale transactions and back office applications are automatically re-routed over the always-on satellite connection.
Customer Value: By intelligently combining both applications onto a single network, the retail chain successfully implemented their digital media application and saw an increase in per customer sales of 5 percent per store. Simultaneously, they were able to meet the objective of implementing a continuity of operations system. The combined solution actually lowered the clients overall capital expenditure and operation expense costs compared to two stand-alone systems for digital signage and business continuity.
