SAM FLAX Stores moves customer checkout lines 2-fold faster and accelerates delivery of custom orders as much as 10-fold

•  Backup/Recovery/Archiving•  Infrastructure Efficiency•  Mobile Computing•  Power & Cooling •  Virtualization—Server

“ SAM FLAX couldn’t be successful without our customers, and we couldn’t properly serve our customers without Windows® Small Business Server 2011 running on Dell hardware. It’s that straightforward.” Jack Fitzgerald, Chief Operating Officer, SAM FLAX Stores

Customer Profile

Company: SAM FLAX Stores

Industry: Retail and Wholesale

Country: United States

Employees: 39

Web: www.samflax.com

Business Need High-end art and office supply retailer SAM FLAX Stores was handicapped in its customer service by sluggish IT systems. Due to old age and capacity limitations, the combination of legacy hardware and software was resulting in a slow customer checkout process, delays in delivery of custom orders, and a lack of agility in the company’s decisions about pricing and product mix.

Solution SAM FLAX worked with Dell™ and Microsoft® partner WorkITsafe™ to build a virtual infrastructure based on Hyper-V™ and Windows® Small Business Server 2011. The environment runs on a Dell PowerEdge™ server supported by a Dell PowerVault™ storage array.

  Benefits•  2-fold faster customer checkout lines

•  10-fold faster delivery of some  custom orders

•  More than 3-fold faster backups  (3 hours vs. 10-13 hours)

•  Elimination of downtime during  business hours

•  90% less time to deploy new server

•  Improved cash flow management

•  25% increase in cash discounts  taken with vendors

•  75% reduction in physical server hardware

•  20-30% reduction in power and  cooling costs

•  Automatic application of software patches and updates to all client computers

•  Data security improved through  granular permission settings

“ We have to get customers through our checkout lines quickly if we want them to come back. With Windows® Small Business Server 2011 on our Dell hardware, our lines are moving twice as fast as before.” Jack Pietruszka, Controller, SAM FLAX Stores

“Our industry is highly competitive,” says Jack Fitzgerald, chief operating officer. “What gives us our edge is that we add design to everything we sell. You can buy a box of paper clips from a big-box store for $1.99. SAM FLAX may charge twice as much, but you’ve never before seen paper clips like ours—in six colors and eight different styles.” To stay in business as a high-end retailer, SAM FLAX must stay ahead of trends. It must provide outstanding customer service. Moreover, it must have an efficient, highly stable IT infrastructure.

Efficiency: The next big thing

“In 2008, when business dropped for retailers across America, we were affected,” Fitzgerald admits. “We reduced costs everywhere we could. At the same time, we looked for ways to improve efficiency. We were running Windows® Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 on a legacy Dell rack-mounted server. In addition, our file server, Microsoft Exchange Server and SQL line-of-business application each required a dedicated physical box.”

Worse, data protection processes interfered with other business activities. SAM FLAX stores open at 9:30 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. on weekdays. The company’s accountants don’t finish their workday until well after the stores close, and other administrative employees work remotely after hours. Nightly backups took 10 to 13 hours, so they usually conflicted with either the start or the end of the business day.

When Eastern European immigrant Sam Flax opened a

pushcart-based art supply business in New York City in

1920, he probably didn’t imagine that nine decades later his

name would epitomize design in the city that never sleeps.

Nevertheless, that’s how his story has panned out. Today

SAM FLAX Stores sell high-end arts and crafts products, office

supplies, and furniture. The company comprises two retail

stores, a gallery on the fifth floor of Bloomingdale’s and an

online store.

Technology at Work

Services

Dell™ ProSupport with four-hour onsite service

Hardware

Dell OptiPlex™ desktop computers with Intel® processors

Dell PowerEdge™ R710 server with Intel Xeon® processor 5600 series

Dell PowerVault™ MD1000 direct-attached storage

Dell PowerVault LTO-4-120 tape library

Dell Vostro™ 320 desktop computers with Intel processors

Software

Microsoft® Forefront™ Threat Management Gateway 2010

Microsoft® Office 2010

Microsoft Outlook® and Outlook Web Access

Sage ERP MAS 90

Symantec Backup Exec™ System Recovery 2010

Windows® 7

Windows® Small Business Server 2011

Windows Small Business Server 2011 Premium Add On

“We’re always looking for the next big thing, and we were just dying,” Fitzgerald says. “Accessing information was tedious, and then we had periods of time when employees couldn’t work because we were backing up our servers.”

WorkITsafe™, a Dell and Microsoft partner that focuses on small to midsize enterprises, remotely manages the SAM FLAX technology infrastructure. On that firm’s recommendation, SAM FLAX upgraded to SBS 2011. It also rolled out a new Hyper-V-based virtual server environment, which supports all of the company’s business operations. SAM FLAX consolidated its four servers onto one Dell PowerEdge R710 server with Intel Xeon processor 5600 series and a Dell PowerVault MD1000 direct-attached storage device.

For image-based backup and recovery, SAM FLAX deployed Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 2010 software and a Dell PowerVault LTO-4-120 external tape library. The company also upgraded its client machines. It rolled out Dell OptiPlex and Dell Vostro desktop computers running Windows® 7, Microsoft® Office 2010 and Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG).

3-fold faster backups,  no more downtime

The new infrastructure immediately improved availability of the company’s key business systems. Data protection no longer results in downtime during business hours because backups run more than threefold faster, now taking only three hours. “We can start a backup at 2 a.m., and it will complete well before the start of the business day,” says Steve Rubin, president of WorkITsafe. “The hardware is just that much faster.”

SBS 2011 is further improving availability. “SAM FLAX is a small business, but because of its online store, its systems have to be up 24×7,” Rubin says. “Previously, if a piece of hardware failed, it might have affected the whole environment. Now, with SBS 2011

and the virtual infrastructure, an issue with one virtual server won’t affect the availability of the company’s other systems.”

Windows® Server Update Services (WSUS) 3.0, which comes with SBS 2011, alerts WorkITsafe to any Windows update failures. “WSUS combined with our software agents heartbeat the servers every five minutes,” Rubin says. “This helps us ensure that they stay healthy. In addition, WSUS automatically applies updates and patches to all our client computers, then reports back to us about their success.”

So far, the new SAM FLAX infrastructure has experienced no downtime except for scheduled reboots. “The Dell hardware we’ve installed gives small businesses true system stability,” Rubin says. “If SAM FLAX experiences a software-related server failure, we can spin up a new virtual machine in 10 percent of the time that it used to require to manually set up a server. And in the event of a hardware failure, we know that Dell ProSupport will have the problem resolved within four hours.”

Granular settings for  more secure data

SBS 2011 also improves data and messaging security. The solution’s Remote Web Access functionality enables end users to access files and documents on the company’s network through a Web browser. Meanwhile, WorkITsafe uses its granular security settings to dictate which workstations each user can access.

As part of the SBS 2011 upgrade, SAM FLAX migrated to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, which brought additional security benefits. One is the granularity with which WorkITsafe can manage permissions for mobile devices’ email access. Another is the ability in Outlook Web Access 2010 to give users two separate interfaces for remote access: one with limited information, for access through a public kiosk, and another for employees’ use on a secure, private computer.

“ Over many years in this business, we’ve found Dell technology to be fast, well-designed and leading-edge in terms of features. We’ve also found that throughout the hardware life cycle, Dell is a partner that understands the small to midsize enterprise.” Steve Rubin, President, WorkITsafe

2-fold faster checkout lines

The Hyper-V virtual infrastructure is saving SAM FLAX both floor space and money. “I estimate that we’re saving 20 to 30 percent on power and cooling costs for our server room,” Fitzgerald says. “At the same time, the performance of our applications has improved dramatically. Our Dell PowerEdge R710 server is lightning fast.”

The increase in compute power is benefiting SAM FLAX in numerous ways. Primarily, the company can now serve customers more quickly. “On a good day, we’re conducting thousands of transactions,” says Jack Pietruszka, controller. “Here in New York, where everybody is spinning their wheels faster and faster every day, we have to get customers through our checkout lines quickly if we want them to come back. With Windows® Small Business Server 2011 on our new Dell hardware, our lines are moving twice as fast as before.”

The systems have accelerated service even more dramatically for custom orders. “Our Eames lounge and ottoman come in a variety of shells, with four possible finishes, and then around 7,000 different choices of leather,” Fitzgerald says. “We couldn’t stock every possible combination. In the past, when someone ordered the Eames lounge, it was automatically a special order that would take two or three weeks to arrive. Now, because our systems are so much more efficient, we can use them to see whether a chair

built to our customer’s specifications is available anywhere else. If we find one already built, we can accelerate delivery of the product 10-fold, from three weeks to as few as two days.”

Better cash management,  smaller accounting staff

The Dell-based infrastructure is also improving the company’s internal operations. “Because our hardware performs so much better, we can multitask throughout the day,” Pietruszka says. “I can stay connected to bank sites and credit card sites, while running our Sage ERP MAS 90 accounting package and Outlook. Previously, I had to close one application before opening another. Now I can respond to vendor inquiries in a fluid manner. I can also manage our cash flow more meticulously, timing payments to optimize our use of cash discounts with vendors. From 2009 to 2010, we increased the dollar value of cash discounts taken by more than 25 percent, and we project that number to continue growing as our sales volume increases. Our systems have increased my productivity immensely and have improved the company’s bottom line.”

Because of the efficiency improvements, he adds, half of the accounting department’s clerical positions were reassigned to other tasks. “We’ve streamlined the department from four or five to two or three people in a clerical function,” Pietruszka says. Moreover, the company’s implementation of Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway

has increased employee productivity companywide by ensuring that users browse only appropriate Web sites.

Perhaps most important, the company’s managers and buyers now have access to the information they need to make correct and timely business decisions. “Our mix of products is constantly evolving,” Fitzgerald says. “Our systems enable us to adjust our product mix quickly. They also let us adjust prices immediately, in response to an ad or other action by a competitor. We couldn’t do that before.”

Partners to small and  midsize businesses

Because SAM FLAX relies on WorkITsafe to keep its systems running smoothly, WorkITsafe depends on Dell. “Over many years in this business, we’ve found Dell technology to be fast, well-designed and leading-edge in terms of features,” Rubin says. “We’ve also found that throughout the hardware life cycle—from solution design to implementation and configuration to support—Dell is a partner that understands the small to midsize business.”

That understanding is paying off for SAM FLAX. “As a small business owner, I have a huge personal interest in the success of this company,” Fitzgerald says. “SAM FLAX couldn’t be successful without our customers, and we couldn’t properly service our customers without Windows®

Small Business Server 2011 running on Dell hardware. It’s that straightforward.”

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