Transform store operations and elevate the customer experience

Sushi Sushi has expanded from a single Melbourne store in 1998 to 170 locations across Australia, including dine-in restaurants, kiosks, and grab-and-go micro stores in shopping centers, high streets, universities, supermarkets, hospitals, and airports. With plans to scale to over 250 stores by 2028, the company set out to modernize its operations with future- ready, enterprise-grade IT infrastructure.

Anthony Sok, General Manager of IT at Sushi Sushi, was prepared for the challenge when he joined. “It was clear that foundational work needed to be done to restore our franchisees’ trust in IT,” he said. “There was a backlog of IT support tickets.”

“The comms rack in the stores were difficult to cable manage,” said Sok. In-store systems were unreliable. Switches lacked the capacity to connect all the stores’ essential devices at the same time. Wi-Fi was slow.

“The IT helpdesk team spent a lot of time troubleshooting problems with the store operators, which took their time away from selling sushi,” said Sok. “We had no visibility into the store connectivity, and there was no way to be proactive when clients dropped or if the internet went down.”

Sushi Sushi undertook a complete digital transformation, standardizing and modernizing its in-store systems and infrastructure. All locations upgraded to Mist for an AI-native and cloud-native network that would deliver the right data, the right real-time response, and the right secure infrastructure to support smooth store operations, excellent customer experiences, and streamline IT operations.

Sok also saw the opportunity to leverage the Juniper network to drive customer loyalty and repeat business. Juniper Indoor Location Services, working in conjunction with the virtual Bluetooth® Low Energy (vBLE) capabilities in Juniper access points, provide a digital foundation for future mobile ordering and loyalty programs.

When Sok joined Sushi Sushi, he made a bold commitment to the company’s 90 franchise partners: Transform IT in just four months. He delivered on that promise.

“We’re passionate about the success of our franchise partners, and now we can take our brand to the next level,” he said.

 Smooth store operations
“The stability and visibility of the Mist platform allows our franchise partners to focus on the customer experience,” said Sok.

Phones, point-of-sale systems, digital signage, and guests’ mobile devices have measurable, reliable, and secure connections. The Juniper Wi-Fi 6E APs automatically optimize the users’ network experience and can deliver real-time indoor location services without battery-powered beacons.

 IT is no longer firefighting
The Marvis AI Assistant has reduced IT headaches and empowered the IT team to resolve problems faster. “Our IT team used to work more than 60 hours a week to put out fires,” said Sok. “With Mist, we spend far less time on intensive troubleshooting and we’re down to a manageable 40 hours. We finally have room to breathe—and focus on what’s ahead.”

The days of overflowing support ticket queues are behind them, too. “Before Juniper, we would receive roughly 60 tickets a month just on network dropouts, unstable internet, weak wireless signal, end user performance issues,” he said. “Within two months that was halved to 30 and within 12 months it is sitting at single digits each month.

 Drive revenue and brand loyalty
An agile, scalable network has freed up Sushi Sushi’s management team to focus on the customer experience, including plans for a mobile app for convenient ordering and pickup.

“A mobile app and location services are a game-changing way to communicate with customers about promotional offers and loyalty rewards when they are in the vicinity of a Sushi Sushi location,” said Sok. “We are working with the Juniper stack to push the boundaries of customer experience.”