At Aston Martin, IT Accelerates the Speed of Business

Aston Martin Lagonda takes luxury cars to a new level. As part of its strategic plan to build a long-term, sustainable automotive business, the company developed its Second Century plan to create seven new models in seven years, including Lagonda all-electric vehicles.

“Aston Martin exists to be the great British sports car brand that builds the most accomplished automotive art in the world,” says Steve O’Connor, director of IT at Aston Martin.

To deliver on its Second Century plan, Aston Martin Lagonda needed to better align business and IT. Information technology supports the heart of the business— everything from in-house software development, automotive design and engineering, and hand-crafted production to everyday finance, marketing, and other business operations. “The IT department’s biggest challenge was to move with the speed of business,” says O’Connor. “We needed to be more innovative, agile, and responsive to deliver IT services faster.”

IT transformation began at Aston Martin Lagonda’s head office in Gaydon, Warwickshire, United Kingdom. “We wanted a consistent network platform across the two environments on which we could run our IT functions,” says Darryl Alder, network architect at Aston Martin. Aston Martin Lagonda selected Juniper Networks to bring more agility to its network services.

“The first thing I look for in any potential partner is someone who is going to be an extension of my IT function,” O’Connor says. “Once we met Juniper and understood how their business related to our business, it was quite clear that Juniper would give us the extension of the IT function that we needed.”

The Aston Martin Lagonda network team appreciates the simplicity and reliability of the Junos operating system, which runs across Juniper’s routing, switching, and security platforms.

“Junos OS is really easy for the team to manage,” says Alder. “We can effectively template the configurations and it’s really easy to deploy any extensions to the network.”

At the same time, the network team is advancing its use of automation. “With automation, we don’t need to bring more people on and we can consistently scale up,” O’Connor explains. “The simplicity of Juniper means that we can be a lean network team,” Alder adds.

The relationship between Aston Martin Lagonda and Juniper is strong. “One of the key differentiators with Juniper is the relationship that our technical team has with the Juniper technical team,” says O’Connor. “It’s on a peer-to-peer level, and that’s really key because it gets us to where we need to be to keep the business running.”

“IT is viewed these days as a utility. It just needs to work. It’s key for us to have a network that is proven and gives us the outcomes that we need as a business. Juniper delivers that.”

“With Juniper, we have a high-performance network that is simpler, more consistent, and easier to support,” says O’Connor. “Juniper gives us a better return on investment.”