Quality Wine & Spirits
G/On helps one of Georgia’s premier wine and spirits distributors work even more effectively by securing live connections to Microsoft Navision.
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Quality Wine & Spirits, Inc. is the fastest growing wholesale wine and spirits distributor in the state of Georgia. Focusing on the finest wines and premium spirits, they are passionate about the products they represent. Since their inception, they’ve worked hard to develop strong relationships with suppliers from around the world and they are a key player in the wine and spirits wholesale market, serving the metropolitan Atlanta area and the entire State of Georgia. The Director of Quality’s IT Department is Randall Brown. He supports Quality’s network infrastructure as well as the distribution software, Microsoft Navision. On a day-to-day basis, Randall manages the 20 PCs in the office and 30 laptops issued to salespeople in the field. Minimizing support and administrative processes is therefore a key parameter for him. Joe Best, President of Quality Wine & Spirits, Inc. approached Randall with a challenge. "We want to give our sales people live access to our Microsoft Navision system so they could work with data in real time. Being able to access the software ‘on-the-fly’ is necessary, eliminating any need for batch synchronization. The problem we faced was securing the live connection," explained Joe. Previously Quality had been using an IPSec VPN to give employees secure remote access to applications, but Randall was convinced there had to be an easier, more cost-efficient solution. "The VPN we were using back then was difficult to administer. I had to call our external provider just to set up a new user, plus I had to install the client software on every laptop." At that point a local Giritech partner, Business Management Software, Inc. of Marietta, GA, demonstrated G/On to Randall. He liked what he saw. "G/On had all the attributes we were looking for. It was very ‘hi-tech’ but easy to manage and it let users work with Microsoft Dynamics in real-time as if they were here in the office. Also, it integrated with our current firewall security we already had in place," recalls Randall. Working with their Giritech partner, Randall configured the system so users could only connect to Microsoft Dynamics - and nothing else - via a Terminal Services connection. "At first people only used it on the laptops we’d given them, but now they know they can easily use their G/On USB key from just about any PC. This has opened up their work processes, giving them the flexibility to work when its’ most convenient," explains Randall. Randall anticipates extending Quality’s G/On service to include the new MS Exchange servers that the company will soon be installing and accessing office PCs from home. He also plans to implement a Citrix server remote access solution in the near future. "As Quality Wine & Spirits, Inc. grows, we need solutions that will grow with us. G/On by Giritech is a solution that will keep up with our rapid growth without further expense or development. Now that is a solution we can live with," explains Joe Best. |
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