Online florist Arena Flowers has selected Comms365 to provide a reliable and fast internet connection to its temporary warehouse, during its peak season.
Based in Milton Keynes, Arena Flowers has been providing floral arrangements for over twelve years and sold online through its e-commerce website and also fulfils orders on behalf of other partner businesses.
Although the business manages a high volume, 24/7 operation throughout the year, for several months that coincide with Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, the industry experiences a ten-fold increase on its usual volume of orders. During this peak time, Arena Flowers must lease additional warehouse premises to fulfil the increased operational throughput, but often the warehouse space is required at relatively short notice, and as such, the availability of a reliable internet connection can vary depending on what premises is free.
In this instance, the warehouse space did not come with an internet connection, and with the timescale, it wasn’t feasible to install fixed-line internet services at the site in time. After a site survey revealed that there was a good 4G signal on the site, it was clear that this would be the viable technology and as such, Arena Flowers approached Comms365 to supply a solution that would deploy the required connectivity across the entire site, in time for orders to start being processed. Comms365 provided Arena Flowers with four Continuum boxes, designed to offer fast and secure internet connectivity over multiple bonded 4G connections, as well as rapid access to the cloud, corporate services, email, IP telephony and VPN.
Each Continuum box provided connectivity for every area of the business; one for printing, office use, the warehouse production line and another as a backup, as business continuity was the primary objective for the business. From the initial enquiry to installation, Comms365 ensured that the solution was deployed with a rapid turnaround, leaving plenty of time to spare ahead of Arena Flowers’ production line going live.
Due to the nature of Arena Flowers’ offering, high speed and reliable internet connection are crucial to the success of the operation for numerous reasons. As orders are processed, a stable connection is required to keep track of packages as they progress through the system. The business also does a lot of printing on site, with each package containing a card, packing information and a courier label, as well as offering personalisation for their products. Therefore, the connection provided by the Continuum boxes was essential to keep the business going during the busiest time for the company.
Arena Flowers Chief Technical Officer Sandy Reid said that during the outfit’s peak times over Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, its throughput could increase tenfold.
“If we’re trying to process tens of thousands of parcels in twelve hours, we can’t afford any downtime at all.”
The Continuum boxes that Comms365 provided were an ideal solution to the predicament the company faced.
“Not only did we require a connection to be deployed rapidly in an environment with no connectivity, but it was also imperative that the connection remained fast and stable at all times. Throughout the peak periods, we experienced no outages and the internet connection held up excellently, so we were very pleased with the entire project .”
