Case study: Euroresins back to core business supported by the ASP-model and Multrix
by Multrix

Euroresins is a growing network of European distribution companies specialising in the composites and allied industries, operating in Benelux, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Norway.

The group is owned by DSM Composite Resins, Europe's largest producer of structural UP resins. Euroresins is committed to providing the widest range of quality products from leading principals, backed by a reliable service and after sales support.

Euroresins provides an increasingly important service to its customers. By often taking care of logistics and sales, customers can concentrate on the core activities of their businesses. Furthermore, Euroresins provides additional support in terms of application know-how, health and safety awareness, and advice on environmental / legislative compliance.

Euroresins was using an SAP system for business automation, which was managed by an external supplier. To decrease costs Euroresins decided to implement financial software from Navision, and support all its European subsidiaries through one partner, one contract and one location. As Euroresins has limited IT-resources, the company decided to implement the Application Service Providing (ASP) model of Multrix.

Marcel van Kempen, General Manager of Euroresins: “As Euroresins is not specialized in the design, operations and management of a complete ICT infrastructure, it did not make sense to implement an in house solution. But this means that you have to fully depend on the expertise and support of external suppliers. We’ve contacted a number of companies to set up and manage our network, but overall they seemed to lack the entrepreneurial spirit and possibilities to propose a suitable solution for us. We concluded that the risks were too high to pursue a full outsourcing solution. Once you’ve decided for this option, the provider would want to “freeze” the situation which makes innovation in ICT a problem.”

Euroresins contacted Multrix, which could cover the international needs and proposed a suitable solution that supported the company’s growth strategy without having to make large up front investments. Van Kempen: “In retrospect you could say: Multrix is the only ASP – that we’ve come across – that could deliver all the service elements as a cost effective total solution for our company with its small subsidiaries and home workers in six countries and that supported future growth in the same financial structure. Furthermore Multrix was able to provide support such as helpdesk at times that our subsidiaries are operational.”

All the European subsidiaries of Euroresins (total 102 users) are using Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Exchange 2000 and Navision Financials, which are installed at Multrix’ IT centre. The offices are connected via the Internet over a VPN-connection implemented by Multrix using the UUNet backbone. Sales managers can use the applications when on the road or at home via an Internet dial in connection.

More flexibility at lower costs
The most strategic benefits for Euroresins are significantly lower costs in comparison with setting up a full in house solution from scratch with better and more advanced services – bearing in mind that the company had limited means. On top of that the ASP-model offers a higher degree of flexibility when adding new locations and increasing or decreasing the number of employees. Finally, it provided a faster implementation process, which is characteristic for centralised IT-operations.

Euroresins is now able to operate its business without having to worry about the required IT-resources. Because of centralisation and standardisation it’s much easier to open new offices within and beyond Western Europe, that are capable of using the standard Euroresins applications in a very short timeframe.

Central infrastructure
The servers that run the Euroresins applications are installed centrally in the Multrix IT centre, which was designed and built in cooperation with IBM. The Multrix IT centre is completely redundant, housing auxiliary power units and data communication facilities. Access is controlled by hand geometry readers and other security measures.

The multi language Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange and Navision software is installed within one of the Citrix MetaFrame ‘farms’, which are load balanced. Every server has four redundant 10/100Mbit network cards that are each connected to separate and redundant switches.

The Navision WebShops have been installed within the shared WebShop-environment, which is based on clustered Windows 2000 servers and Microsoft Commerce Server. Triple mirrored disks via the IBM Hammershark Storage Area Network (SAN) provide storage capacity. Back ups are made constantly by a tape robot via Tivoli Storage Manager (‘LAN-less’ back-up via glassfiber SAN).

The data connections with the subsidiaries of Euroresins are equipped with Netscreen 1000Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and connected to the 155Mbit Internet backbone of Multrix. Systems management is supported by Tivoli Enterprise Suite.

Helpdesk services
Services are provided to Euroresins in compliance with a Service Level Agreement and a contract for 36 months. The SLA guarantees an uptime of 99,7 % (24x7) and also covers end user helpdesk services in Dutch and English during extended office hours (07.30 AM - 19.00 PM). Euroresins has appointed “user captains” in some countries, such as Italy and Spain, who operate as an intermediary between helpdesk and end users. The status of trouble tickets can be tracked via the web, as Multrix uses Tivoli Support Desk to support helpdesk activities.

Furthermore, Multrix manages the UUNet Internet services, which enables the ASP to operate as a single point of contact for the entire ICT-environment. The SLA for Euroresins incorporates a penalty-bonus agreement in case the agreed service levels are not met, or exceeded. This is covered in a monthly report, which also accounts for other elements of the service.

By implementing the ASP-model Euroresins can switch almost seamlessly from a large and complex SAP environment to a centrally managed environment with office automation and Navision. The implementation at the subsidiaries could be completed in a very short timeframe. Within two weeks the project was finished, except for some delays in the provisioning of bandwidth. Currently Euroresins is de-assembling the last remnants of the previous SAP-environment, while at some locations the new applications in the ASP-model work smoothly with the old applications.

“By choosing for the ASP-model and Multrix we have been able to focus on our core activities: sales and the supply of our products, including providing technical support to our 5000 customers in Europe. By centralizing ICT-resources and management, Multrix is instrumental in making ICT work for us, in stead of against us,” concludes to Marcel van Kempen.