Poundland, Europe’s biggest single-price discount retailer, has signed a managed IT services agreement with communications provider NextiraOne.

Under a multi-year agreement, NextiraOne will provide comprehensive support, from break-fix to on-demand services, for Poundland’s Cisco-based network infrastructure. This includes the company’s data centre, voice communications and local area network (LAN) infrastructure across its headquarters, together with its two regional distribution centres (DCs) and a nationwide estate of almost 500 stores.

 

The managed services agreement will ensure that Poundland’s IT team can concentrate on running the efficient systems that keep it at the peak of the value retail sector. The retailer’s core network is essential to its day-to-day operations, handling everything from financial and staff management systems to the integration of sales and stock information with a 24-hour warehousing operation that despatches over 800 million items every year to the company’s retail outlets.

 

A trusted partner for the last nine years, NextiraOne has designed its managed services to be flexible but comprehensive in order to support and enhance Poundland’s operations efficiently and cost-effectively. These begin with 24 hour break-fix support and include performance monitoring, optimisation and flexible additional on-demand services for trading peaks and unforeseen circumstances.

NextiraOne’s managed services also provide Poundland’s IT team with a single overview of its entire IT estate. This management information allows the team to make informed business decisions and take pre-emptive action before issues that could impact the business develop, thus avoiding costly downtime and associated loss of productivity.

“Our business is highly reliant on IT – for orders, stock control, transport & logistics and warehousing. IT resilience is critical as unplanned downtime can quickly damage our business,” said Mike Gray, IT director at Poundland. “By putting in place proactive and preventative service measures, we can minimise business impact and ensure a stable platform for our ongoing growth.”