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icebreaker reimagines IT services

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Project Snapshot

icebreaker

Location:
Auckland, New Zealand

Industry:
Other Sectors

Project Challenges

Seven vendors across multiple time zones was time consuming

The Solution

Aggregating all services to a local strategic partner

Results

Single source of truth with one vendor providing all support at a lower cost

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About icebreaker

Founded by Jeremy Moon in 1995 in New Zealand, icebreaker pioneered the ethical and sustainable production of natural performance apparel. Now a part of the VF Corporation, icebreaker continues to challenge the status quo while championing natural, transparent, and responsible ways to do business. icebreaker looks to nature for the answers and for
innovative ways to do more with less. icebreaker is sold in more than 5,000 stores in 50 countries through wholesale, Touch Lab retail stores, and e-commerce platforms.

After years of technology sprawl, it was time to consolidate

After years of technology sprawl, it was time to consolidate

Nicola Spurdle, Senior IT Manager, Digital and Technology, icebreaker, said, “One of the biggest technological challenges icebreaker faced was that we wanted to move faster and innovate more. We saw a way to achieve this by aggregating our services to a local, strategic partner that would integrate into our business and help drive our digital agenda end-to-end.”

With seven incumbent infrastructure vendors, icebreaker faced daily delivery complexity and engagements tended to be siloed and transactional.

Nicola said, “icebreaker wanted to spend less time reactively 

managing seven vendors across many time zones.

Having multiple vendors also meant our security and operational insights were fragmented. We wanted a single source of truth so we could look across our environment and better understand our current state and future opportunity.”

With a complex operating model and no single source of truth, icebreaker moved to consolidate its relationships and appoint a single managed service provider (MSP) to engage as a strategic partner. This would lower costs, simplify the operating model and support icebreaker’s future focused agenda.

"Aggregating seven vendors into a single partner saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. This has helped overall business profitability while also enabling us to drive an increased focus on improvement and innovation”

— Nicola Spurdle, Senior IT Manager, Digital and Technology

Intergen and icebreaker – A trusted partnership

icebreaker had an existing 11-year relationship with Intergen who were already a trusted partner managing the business’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool.

Nicola said, “icebreaker ’s ERP solution is critical to the business and the team had already seen the value of Intergen support. Intergen’s Azure Expert MSP status and strategic partnership with Microsoft was also extremely important, especially given that icebreaker ’s full infrastructure stack sits in Azure. Intergen

offered exactly what icebreaker needed in terms of simplification for everything from ERP to infrastructure and security.”

Intergen worked with icebreaker to design the services and map out a transition roadmap. Nicola said, “The transition was absolutely seamless with no disruption to the business. Intergen ensured that icebreaker avoided unnecessary costs and worked closely with the incumbent vendors to manage a streamlined switchover to an Intergen managed service.”

Accelerated innovation

The icebreaker and Intergen partnership is already delivering on the promise of innovation. A wider team of experts, best practice standards, increased reliability, and improved security posture have been early wins.

Nicola said, “As a subsidiary of VF Corporation, it was important for icebreaker to be able to provide comprehensive security analysis. Being able to drive that conversation through deeper security insight is a huge benefit. This will let icebreaker focus on continuous improvement and future value.”

Switching to Intergen managed services has also achieved significant cost savings. Nicola said, “Aggregating seven vendors into a single partner saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. This has helped overall business profitability while also enabling us to drive an increased focus on improvement and innovation.”

As the future unfolds, icebreaker will continue to focus on sustainability and security and continue the focus on agility and improvement.

Nicola said, “icebreaker and Intergen share common values: people first, honesty and openness, and a common focus on innovation and sustainability. The cultural fit of icebreaker and Intergen is critically important to the success we have experienced and to our strategic partnership.

My advice to others is to take the leap of faith. It was difficult to end many long-term vendor relationships and move to the promise of a new aggregated service. However, with the operational, cost saving, and innovation benefits we are realising I now wish we had done it sooner.”

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