Harmonix Music Systems, a videogame development company specializing in music-based games, faced a significant challenge when planning for the release of Rock Band 3. The company had learned from previous releases that significant spikes in network traffic occurred with each new release, and traffic further increased during the holiday season. Harmonix needed a load testing solution that was able to simulate not only the expected load of a new release, but also an influx of heavy usage during a holiday season. For Rock Band and Rock Band 2, they performed load testing on their servers using an in-house solution. However, this configuration created security concerns and resource issues. They could not launch as many instances as they wanted to in order to scale the load testing. These issues combined with the desire to save money on load testing led Harmonix to look at cloud computing options for load testing when launching Rock Band 3.

A Fortune 1000 enterprise SaaS provider sought to secure a new greenfield data center without restricting application traffic for its automated compute environment. The stakes and costs for a new data center were high. Complex automation was critical to this SaaS provider’s current and future plans, including public cloud. In automated environments, DevOps cannot accept any solution that breaks automation or slows down their work, which is essential to keeping billions of dollars of revenue flowing. Customer SLAs (spelled out in contracts) cannot be violated without financial penalty. This created tension between automation and contractual obligations. Security architects needed to transform an operationally unsustainable system – one that required supporting five different segmentation solutions including firewalls, Calico, VMware NSX, and switches. Every time the organization adopted a new technology, they adopted a new segmentation solution, which made them have to build their own backend to synchronize all of the different solutions. This created security sprawl.

The IT team for one of the country’s largest medical groups was initially overwhelmed by the scope of its network segmentation project in terms of time, expense, and ongoing maintenance. The team had to refocus on its core objectives: segmenting applications and segmenting people from servers and environments. The team was concerned about the 5% of attacks that could potentially infiltrate their network and remain undetected for a long time, learning about their environment. They needed a solution that could limit access from day one and prevent a desktop from pinging a server.

The talent agency was facing increasing costs and systems from acquisitions, along with a central data center that was already out of space. The agency adopted a hybrid cloud strategy, with a key success factor being a multi-cloud model to avoid vendor lock-in with one large incumbent. However, maintaining several different and incompatible security solutions for each cloud and the data center wasn’t operationally viable. The agency had to seamlessly support high-profile clients; outages and downtime – planned or unplanned – were unacceptable. The board-level decision for multi-cloud adoption required deployment, but the final solution had to be effective enough to defuse objections among a multiplicity of motivated stakeholders.

Baillie Gifford, a global asset management firm, was seeking a solution that would provide granular assurance of client data protection on an ongoing basis. The firm wanted to deliver a higher level of scrutiny than traditional segmentation methods could provide. However, re-architecting its network infrastructure was not an option due to the potential risks and costs involved. The firm was also considering leveraging cloud for efficiencies and to avoid vendor lock-in, but was concerned about governing the environments consistently.

A leading eCommerce retailer was facing a challenge in achieving PCI compliance for its payment infrastructure. The company's network was flat, and penetration testing revealed vulnerabilities that could expose its payment infrastructure to malicious activity if perimeter defenses were breached. The company needed to quickly segment their Cardholder Data Environment (CDE) from the rest of their applications to avoid critical findings during the PCI audit. The challenge was to isolate systems processing credit card data and mitigate lateral movement attacks in a heterogeneous hardware platform environment.

A Global 250 bank was struggling with mandatory SWIFT compliance due to the complexity and time-consuming nature of building granular and consistent micro-segmentation policies using their standard firewall-based approach. The bank was also facing challenges such as security product overload, a rapidly changing threat landscape, scarcity of qualified security personnel, and the need to move into a hybrid cloud in a secure manner. The bank needed a more flexible and less complicated solution that could address their critical security, compliance, and data protection requirements without compromising the need to move at the speed of their global business spanning multiple continents and time zones.

A Fortune 100 healthcare service sold a part of their business and associated infrastructure to a foreign entity. Both businesses needed to realize the synergies immediately. However, without an understanding of how the company’s own applications were interconnected, their teams were unsure of what part of their IT infrastructure the new acquirer potentially touched and risked breaking business-critical applications by arbitrarily cutting communications. The company’s attempts to identify application dependencies using the network provided limited visibility, preventing them from confidently segmenting the acquired assets.

Ixom, a leading industrial chemical manufacturer based in Melbourne, faced multiple IT challenges securing legacy applications that require unsupported platforms for continued operations, as well as the desire to network harden critical IT infrastructure to decrease the risk from vulnerabilities. With a portfolio of global businesses across geographies, cloud infrastructure was critical to gaining efficiencies. Yet governing cloud environments posed its own security challenges. A transition from Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) routing to a Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) allowed Ixom’s core IT team to decouple controls from the network for more agility and effectiveness. Adopting a Zero Trust security approach, they sought a whitelisting solution to limit exposure by preventing unauthorized access to any system. But manual methods proved untenable, both to architect and maintain.

One of the world’s largest multinational banks sought to transform new and re-platformed application deployments when it became clear that its legacy infrastructure was perpetuating security debt. The organization’s go-forward strategy meant all new applications and new versions of older applications would launch ringfenced, with segmentation baked in at deployment. However, technology options decreased as software-defined networking failed to live up to its promises and did not solve the organization’s long-term heterogeneity problems (containers and public cloud). New applications were launching, but still without segmentation – compounding the problem the bank aimed to resolve. As the issue persisted with a new data center, which had been justified based on improved security, the pressure for segmentation grew because enhanced security was one of the justifications of the new data center. Open banking standards required the bank to rapidly create new applications in order to maintain its competitiveness. The organization had built a fully automated self-service portal for developers that could not be used because automated segmentation was not in place. The bank needed a highly automated solution that supported digital transformation. Now under pressure from the application teams, the security, cloud, and containers teams were strongly aligned to deliver a solution that met the needs of the business.

A Fortune 100 bank faced compliance violations for its inadequate ability to prove separation of development and production environments. Potential penalties included heavy fines and cessation of its ability to trade on the Nikkei exchange. The bank’s business, credibility, and reputation were at stake. They failed an audit after executing millions of dollars worth of trades and were under pressure to deliver by a specific timeline. The risk of repeated audit failure was everyone’s problem, but the bank didn’t have a clear solution. Network-based solutions meant reconfiguring a major portion of the network and involved a heavy burden of infrastructure upgrades and re-IPing. The significant fiscal and operational expenses of this approach were untenable – as was the service outage to the business.

One of the largest and fastest-growing players in the Software as a Service (SaaS) industry needed to deploy two new data centers in two countries to support customer and geographic growth plans. They were facing rapid growth and increasing east/west data center traffic. They needed a solution that would protect customer data and scale into the future – a requirement that would be hard to meet with network segmentation and expensive with high-capacity data center firewalls in every rack. They were also looking for a way to more cost effectively segment while maintaining their agile software development culture. From the drawing board to deployment, the company needed to roll out and secure the new data centers in less than six months with live customer data while meeting stringent internal and regional security and compliance requirements.

One of the largest banks in the world sought to rapidly modernize aging IT systems that run the bank’s critical infrastructure. The bank’s board of directors consequently approved a $1B data center revitalization, creating an opportunity for blank-slate security transformation in a greenfield data center deployment. As a result of the board’s approval, the CIO decided to re-platform and migrate 5,000 applications with 33,000 workloads. An aging infrastructure running on older operating systems posed systemic risk to the bank’s ongoing operations. In addition, there was a lack of staff who understood how those applications actually worked. Simply migrating the status quo to a new environment created unnecessarily high IT risks in cybersecurity, resiliency, and obsolescence, posing a threat to the business with board-level scrutiny.

Bitwala, a FinTech start-up, was facing a challenge in managing its customer service operations. The company's customer base, being tech-savvy, had high expectations for instant service. However, Bitwala also had to adhere to the strict regulations of the financial sector. The company was experiencing rapid growth, which led to a huge backlog of customer requests. The existing help centre was underused and not intuitive enough for the customers. Bitwala also wanted to improve its customer onboarding experience and manage expectations around its referral process. The company was looking for a solution that could help them scale their customer service operations while keeping a lean team during a fast growth phase.

Creditplus, a consumer credit bank based in Stuttgart, Germany, was facing challenges in increasing efficiency in their support team. They were struggling to receive the correct data from their customers in one single step. They also aimed to develop an omnichannel strategy while offering their customers a holistic service experience. The bank wanted to provide fast and efficient 24/7 service for repetitive customer requests and improve the user experience for customers communicating changes on their accounts or credits.

musicMagpie, a UK-based online retailer that buys and sells refurbished electronics and second-hand computer games, consoles, books, films and music, experienced a steep ticket increase of 35% during the COVID-19 crisis. This sudden surge in customer requests had a significant impact on their previously low live chat waiting times, which rose from an average of just 60 seconds per user to a staggering 8 minutes. The support team struggled to keep up with the rising number of incoming requests, which were mostly repetitive requests such as order status, payment status and return status that make up 40% of requests. To maintain their exceptionally high CSAT scores, musicMagpie decided to automate their customer service strategy.

Globetrotter, a leading outdoor retailer in Europe, was facing challenges with its service department. The department was operating at maximum capacity and was not equipped to scale. The company was struggling to automate and digitize the service department to meet customer expectations of 24/7 support. The situation was exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to a shift from in-store to online shopping, resulting in an increased demand for support. Prior to implementing a solution, the service department was overwhelmed with the number of requests coming in via phone and email. They were also struggling to set up the right tools and structure to support the team in their daily work.

Fintiba, a fintech company, was struggling with high demand during students’ back-to-university season twice a year. They were often approached multiple times by the same customer through different channels resulting in inefficient ticket handling. Moreover, their support team was lacking the time to address more complex cases requiring the human factor, due to being swamped by repetitive tickets regarding simpler issues. Many customers are under pressure and can feel emotional when f.e. their visa has been declined or their embassy appointment cancelled. In these cases, the contact with a human support agent is important for them, as they will be able to resolve their requests with a high degree of empathy.

Spark R&D, a company that designs and manufactures splitboard-specific bindings, was facing challenges with its inventory and order fulfillment system. The company was struggling to keep track of its inventory and fulfill orders on schedule. The existing system was informal and closed, with only one person having access to the inventory spreadsheet. This lack of visibility and communication between departments was causing delivery problems. The company was unable to get products out the door until well past their target date. They needed a system that could provide visibility across departments and handle the increasing complexity of their operations.

BEX, a Las Vegas-based manufacturer of sunglasses and other accessories, was struggling with inventory management. They were manually tracking sales and inventory in Excel spreadsheets, which was time-consuming and prone to errors. Different departments within the company were acting independently without communicating inventory needs, leading to inefficiencies. Physical inventory checks and counts were a painstakingly long process. The company initially tried Fishbowl Manufacturing, an advanced inventory management system, but found it a bit beyond their needs as a young startup. They switched to a more watered-down solution, but soon realized that it was limited and not meeting their needs.

Backyard Adventures, a Texas-based company that allows customers to design customized playsets for their children, faced a significant challenge in managing its inventory due to the large number of product configurations and parts to track. The company also needed to create custom work orders and standardize incoming product orders from its nationwide network of 65 distributors. The distributors required the new inventory solution to integrate with their QuickBooks® accounting software. Both Backyard Adventures and its distributors needed an accurate picture of inventory levels. Some distributors also needed to manage and track the parts inventories of multiple locations, and Backyard Adventures wanted a standardized way for dealers to place orders when their inventories ran low.

Chung’s Gourmet Foods, a leading producer of Asian entrées and snacks in the United States, was facing several challenges due to outdated technology. Their existing systems were running on DOS and Excel spreadsheets, which were unreliable and required everything to be checked and rechecked before distribution. The company's annual closing cycle took about a month to complete and the system did not allow for retrieval of prior period information. All of Chung’s systems from purchasing to receiving payments were manual. Only one person in the company knew how to fix the DOS system when it went down, and he only worked three days a week. To keep up with rapid growth, Chung’s needed to either continually hire new employees or find a program that could automate processes and reduce the need for additional labor expenses.

Industrial Engine Service (IES) was struggling with a legacy inventory system that was riddled with errors and required numerous workarounds. The company was frequently losing and mismanaging parts, and employees found it difficult to keep track of all the separate parts going into each project. The old DOS system was confusing for many employees and processes were not under sufficient control. IES recognized that to compete at the level they wanted, they needed more control over their inventory and manufacturing processes. However, their complex processes couldn't be handled by a simple inventory system.

KidWind Project Inc., an educational organization, was facing several challenges related to inventory management and operational efficiency. The company had ill-defined job roles for employees and limited inventory-tracking capability. They were holding too much inventory in stock, leading to losses and inefficiency. Their existing system, QuickBooks, couldn’t handle their inventory and light manufacturing needs. Additionally, they needed inventory management software that integrates with QuickBooks and Magento, their online shopping platform. The lack of an effective inventory management system led to misplaced products, unnecessary expenses, and operational chaos.

Pacific Valley Dairy, a producer and distributor of ice cream mixes and related supplies, faced a significant logistical challenge. With over 400 locations throughout the Midwest and as far south as Florida, the company needed a way to manage and track its raw materials, finished products, and distribution. The company had been using QuickBooks for its day-to-day business operations since its inception three years ago. However, they quickly realized that QuickBooks alone did not have the capabilities to manage the company's inventory and distribution requirements. They needed a stronger system that would integrate well with QuickBooks.

Niche Bakers Corp., a Canadian bakery, was facing a challenge of tracking individual ingredients and orders due to its rapidly growing product range. The company had to trace every ingredient put into a product for quality assurance purposes. When a supplier reported an issue with a lot of product, the company had to be able to find that within minutes. The company's products had become quite complex to track as they expanded from cookies to cakes, bars, haystacks, and different products.

Oval Brand Fire Products, a fire protection equipment company, was facing challenges in tracking how materials were being used in their manufacturing process. They were using QuickBooks for their backend operations, but it did not provide sufficient insight into their inventory management. The company was also looking for ways to reduce costs associated with excessive paperwork. The company needed a solution that could provide detailed visibility into their manufacturing process, track the movement of materials, and streamline their operations.

In 2009, Steps To Literacy, an educational resource catalog company, faced many logistical challenges. They serve schools and teachers across the country, but their inventory management system couldn’t ship or order products fast enough to keep up with demand. With warehouses and offices located in Bridgewater, New Jersey, Steps To Literacy manufactures exclusive products and creates specialty book and classroom resource collections for elementary schools. They offer custom products and solutions to their customers to meet specific classroom and school district needs. Because of their focus on customization, Steps To Literacy uses more than 7,000 bill of materials configurations. The continued growth of this company required an inventory management system that could handle such a vast enterprise.

Teas Etc., a specialty tea importer and manufacturer, was facing challenges with its inventory management. After a decade of using QuickBooks, the company found that it was unable to keep up with their growing inventory needs. They needed a solution that could help them know when to reorder base teas, which are used in more than 200 SKUs, and be able to track locations and quantities of those teas. Often, they only discovered they were out of a particular tea after an order had come in for it. This led to delays and other serious customer service problems. The company's orders, inventory load, number of customers, and regulatory requirements were too great for their current inventory management system to handle.

Arrowhead Electronic Healthcare, a company that leases PDAs to customers with their in-house software, was facing challenges in tracking customer shipments and their respective serial numbered merchandise. They needed to know who has what part and when it was shipped. They were also struggling to keep track of inventory consumed within their own company. Their existing system, which involved home-made excel spreadsheets and a long string of paper trails, was prone to human error and cumbersome. They needed an inventory management program to solve their inventory crisis.