RGTS Provides Critical Support to the Absolut Best
With a majority of its total vodka sales occurring in North America, in 2001 Swedish-based V&S Group set up a US marketing organization in New York City for its Absolut brand spirits. But with its IT department thousands of miles away, the firm contracted with RGTS to provide a proxy for their hands-on style of management. With initial responsibilities that included setting up and maintaining telecom IT equipment and broadband services, RGTS now serves as the in-country representative of the IT organization in Stockholm.
A Growing Sense of Trust
Said Christer Forsberg, Director of MIS/IT for V&S Absolut Spirits, “In the beginning we looked to RGTS to provide the “mechanics” that our local people needed to be productive – the phone service, the internet connection, that sort of thing. We are very strict about our technology, which means we have a standard hardware policy, standard application management policy, etc. This ensures that all of the equipment and software used in our organization plays well together. So we very much want as much control as possible centralized here with us at headquarters. But over time, we started to see the benefits of letting RGTS play a more active role as our IT managers in the United States.”
“Early on, Verizon had something go wrong in the basement of our NYC offices. Here in Stockholm, where we monitor everything, we immediately detected that the T-1 line was down, but because it was after-hours in the US, no one there knew anything about it.”
The Network Operations Center Takes the Ball and Runs with It
“We contacted the RGTS Network Operations Center Help Desk, which runs on a 24/7 basis, to ask for their help. And they were able to get things moving on the problem before our staff even arrived at work the next morning. Of course, it made us realize how much more efficient it would be to have their Network Operations Center doing the monitoring there, rather than us doing it from here.”
“If that were to happen now, RGTS would immediately see that there is a network failure, because they now do that monitoring for us. We have also had them set up a secondary ISP and a third redundant Internet T-1, which automatically switches over in the case of a problem.”
Premium Products Require Premium Support
“You know, we make a premium vodka, so we understand paying a bit more in order to get the best. The people at RGTS are reliable and trustworthy. They do their best at all times, and the people we work with are superb. They really try to exceed expectations all the time. And they succeed. I can't ask for more than that in a partner," concluded Forsberg.
