Cisco Cisco 1900 2900 3900 Series 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet HS-WIC with PoE 信息指南
© 2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Customer Name: Family Dollar
Industry: Retail
Location: More than 7000 stores in 45 states;
corporate offices in Charlotte, North Carolina
corporate offices in Charlotte, North Carolina
Number of Employees: 52,000
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
●
Frame Relay WAN connections added to
monthly recurring costs in remote locations
●
Copper circuit provisioning delayed new store
openings
NETWORK SOLUTION
●
Replaced Frame Relay connections with high-
speed wireless interface cards
BUSINESS RESULTS
●
Lower monthly connectivity costs per store
●
Faster time to opening at new stores
●
Fast, reliable point-of-sale transactions deliver
consistently satisfying customer experience
Lowering Retailing Costs
Family Dollar connects stores to central IT faster for less with Cisco interface cards
Business Challenge
Founded in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1959, Family Dollar is one
of the largest small-format convenience and value retailers in
America, with more than 7000 stores in 45 states. Averaging 7000
square feet, Family Dollar stores carry name brand and quality
private brand groceries, household cleaners, housewares, and other
general merchandise. The company has opened an average of 200
new stores annually over the past five years, and plans to step up its
growth by adding another 450-500 stores in the next year alone.
In its fiscal year 2011, Family Dollar reported annual sales of
US$8.5 billion. With the average customer basket size about $10,
Family Dollar’s success depends on a high volume of transactions
per store, which in turn depends on offering a dependably satisfying
customer experience and the smooth, efficient processing of
transactions at the point of sale.
Family Dollar stores operated as cash-and-carry businesses until six
years ago, when the company converted its stores to offer electronic
tender via credit, debit, and gift cards in addition to cash sales. To process their sales transactions, stores are
equipped with Windows Embedded (an XP-based) point of sale (POS) devices. In addition, each store features a
customer-facing thin-client kiosk, which store managers and employees use for scheduling, time-keeping, payroll
allocation, online learning, and other applications hosted by the company’s centralized data center.
To connect remote stores to the company’s WAN, Family Dollar’s IT managers originally chose to use Frame
Relay circuits. “We needed broadband connectivity, but you just couldn’t get ADSL (asymmetric DSL) in some
parts of the U.S., especially in the rural areas where many of our stores are located,” says Family Dollar network
engineering manager John Schoonover. “You still can’t.”
“So we went with Frame Relay where we had to,” he says. “It’s distance-friendly. It’s available everywhere. And it
offers the guaranteed uptime we require.”
The problem is, Frame Relay circuits are relatively costly. A second, bigger problem: Frame Relay circuits, being
copper-based, can take up to 60 days to provision, even after Family Dollar signs a lease and applies for a phone
number for a new store. So new stores might be built out and stocked quickly, and then sit idle for weeks for want
“We wanted to avoid a month or more of facility rent without any
revenues while we wait for the phone company to bring us a circuit.”
revenues while we wait for the phone company to bring us a circuit.”
— John Schoonover, Network Engineering Manager