Musgrave Stores Undergoes Transformation with AI-Native Network Enhancements

0:00 hello I'm Sadir mat I'm the group vice

0:02 president of products here at junipers

0:04 AI driven Enterprise you'll meet some

0:06 great people at the AI in action event

0:08 in London look who I just run into the

0:11 folk from Musgrave Neil Collins Neil

0:14 thank you very much for joining me for a

0:16 quick conversation you're more than

0:17 welcome s so I want to talk about your

0:20 experience that with Juniper Networks

0:22 but before we do that tell us a little

0:25 bit about Musgrave so so Musgrave is is

0:27 a family-owned company it's about 48

0:30 years old were're the largest private

0:33 sector with our Retail Partners sector

0:35 employer in on the island of Ireland and

0:38 we feed one in three people every day

0:40 every day on the island of Ireland and

0:42 and your uh Your Role there I look after

0:45 the it operations in in about 850 stores

0:49 from an operations that would be router

0:50 in in in in every store router switches

0:53 access points then some of the PCS and

0:55 epod systems from a support perspective

0:58 so what does digital trans formation

1:00 look like in retail from From mra's

1:02 perspective and in particular for our

1:04 superv value and Centra Brands right we

1:07 had old Legacy technology so about three

1:10 years ago we engaged with juniper we

1:12 went through a tender process and the

1:14 outcome of that now is we have a

1:17 generational jump in our Network

1:19 Technology in our Stores um a simple

1:23 fact our point on that is in the old

1:25 world if we were upgrading our Network

1:27 in a store four teams would go in right

1:30 it would be two out of hours visits and

1:33 one possibly two daytime visits in the

1:36 new world it's one visit and it's one

1:38 engineer right so from a retailer point

1:40 of view you're talking about three

1:42 disruptions to the store two of them out

1:44 of ours to no disruption to a store we

1:47 can replace the network in under one

1:48 minute outage time in all our stores and

1:51 we're on that road now from a for a roll

1:53 of perspective describe the anatomy of

1:56 that one minute how does one engineer go

1:59 and execute a cutover uh with only one

2:02 minute outage so so if we take a a small

2:04 step back yeah so we we we would have

2:06 gone through some research and testing

2:08 with yourselves yeah right and then we

2:10 knew we to do this over over what 850

2:13 times right so we we piloted in 15

2:15 stores so we we we really were honed in

2:19 on our processes and in particular did

2:21 the ztp the zero touch um deployers at

2:24 DP Zer touch deployment process and for

2:28 that it was all about the rout and the

2:29 switch

2:30 so we on our cellular network we bring

2:32 up the the router deploy the switch and

2:35 then it's we're only switching for that

2:37 30 seconds we're only then moving the

2:40 circuit from the old to the new to the

2:42 new Juniper router but all of the config

2:45 is all in missed so we have everything

2:47 automated the engineer he can download

2:50 the config he can get it operational in

2:52 in seconds really so so basically you're

2:55 building a parallel Network while the

2:57 store is actually operating normally yes

3:00 and on on a on a secondary circuit

3:03 essentially and the last thing you do is

3:05 switch to make that the primary Network

3:07 we make it the primary Network

3:09 absolutely and as I said with the pilot

3:11 stores the focus is all all about our

3:14 customer the retailer how do we minimize

3:17 and they're very much cost focused

3:19 because it's uh it's retail and the real

3:23 benefit is they're not paying for people

3:24 out of ours they're not paying for

3:25 Network Engineers they're not paying for

3:27 M gra to come in and do stuff as I say

3:29 it's one engineer one visit and we're

3:32 we're done one engineer one visit one

3:34 minute outage and you're doing this

3:37 during the operational hours of the

3:39 store during operational hours of the

3:40 store wow stunning how did you actually

3:43 hear about Juniper first so we we would

3:45 have um one or two Engineers I I would

3:47 call them the research and test right so

3:51 they went out they knew we had a a

3:52 looming Legacy out of support uh

3:55 challenge coming and they would have

3:57 went out and they would have picked via

3:59 G another research would have P picked

4:01 the leading the top quadrant quadrant um

4:04 Wi-Fi and then the the the wedge um

4:07 providers and Juniper came up top right

4:11 and then we would have taken that into

4:12 the lab working with your pre-sales team

4:14 into our Labs prove the concepts and we

4:18 would have had some great experiences

4:20 there some challenges but some great

4:21 experience well it can do this right we

4:24 do we literally can do zero touch

4:26 deployed and so so uh from the lab you

4:29 went into a PO how many vendors did you

4:32 take to actually a PO we only took one

4:34 vendor one vendor so we went through a

4:36 fairly rigorous lab process yeah and and

4:39 there was there was a wider tend tending

4:40 process um but once we got out of the

4:43 lab we were going one we we had moved to

4:45 Preferred supplier at that stage very

4:46 good very good and then now what has

4:48 been the experience from a store's

4:51 perspective because you are actually it

4:54 for retailers that are franchisees hard

4:57 to sell to them and it's a whole

4:59 different different uh endgame so how

5:01 did that work so Mo would Pride itself

5:03 on having a very strong relationship

5:05 with the retail when we say retailers

5:07 they really our partners right that's

5:08 right um so there's absolutely a cost

5:11 Focus but but as well as that the

5:13 criticality of having a a really robust

5:16 service we cannot have the consumer

5:19 standing at a till waiting for a credit

5:21 card transaction our a loyalty app to to

5:24 give it some information right so from

5:26 the retailer perspective one the outage

5:28 to the cost because Coster manage right

5:30 but three what what they're seeing now

5:32 right is and and we knew it once we

5:34 started to survey our stores right

5:36 service degradation is a killer in the

5:38 stores right right if you have a service

5:40 outage you get it fixed correct but

5:41 service degradation 10 20% if that's 10

5:44 minutes a day or 20 minutes a day

5:45 because my Wi-Fi doesn't work in that

5:47 part of the store um you add that up

5:50 over a year and you know that can become

5:52 hundreds thousands of dollars right or

5:54 Euros so you you've the service

5:56 degradation which missed is brilliant at

5:58 identifying MH we we we've gone from a

6:01 position where we didn't know where an

6:03 whether an AP was up or down in our

6:04 stores now we know the aps are up and

6:07 down but we know all the devices that

6:08 are connected to the aps so our

6:10 visibility into the stores our ability

6:12 to have to ring a retailer and say um

6:15 your handhel it's in the back it's in

6:17 the back office right or um I've had one

6:20 retailer ring me a couple of nights

6:22 after we went live saying I got a phone

6:24 call other other night we were here

6:25 working late in the office and we turned

6:26 something off and we got a phone call

6:27 saying are you okay and it that was the

6:30 first time it made a real for the

6:31 retailer that every device is being

6:34 monitored in his store right and another

6:37 retailer was saying when I talk about

6:39 the service degradation right they

6:42 pulled someone who was spending their

6:44 time with slow network with a slow

6:47 Network they would have to pull them

6:48 from that reduce the time that they were

6:50 spending on that once they put in the

6:51 new network and move them to the the

6:54 impulse category which is the better

6:55 margin Goods So Not only was he saving

6:58 money uh with with a better network but

7:00 he was selling more of high high value

7:02 products wome so very real examples of

7:05 the benefits to the retailers yeah and

7:08 so you got the network you're obviously

7:10 in the midst of deployment how far along

7:12 in the deployment and what is next after

7:14 this so from a deployment point of view

7:17 we we we've just broken through 100

7:19 stores we having started in Earnest in

7:21 July and we'll do 300 next year 300 the

7:24 following year that's the ROI done and

7:26 in parallel at the back end of that

7:28 we'll do what we would call n irand or

7:30 what's called n irand um another 140

7:32 stores right so we'll have our networks

7:34 upgraded across the estate and then when

7:36 we think about the next steps there

7:38 there's very practical kind of

7:40 operational ideas there right we're

7:41 going to upgrade our handels right maybe

7:44 3,000 handels but now we're able to

7:46 track them right because most own the

7:48 handels and they're expensive that's a

7:50 game changer for us from a security

7:52 point of view and and and asset

7:53 management perspective we're looking at

7:56 with our loyalty apps which we we're

7:58 deploying the ap3 3es at every entrance

8:01 right so with our loyalty apps and some

8:02 SDK work that when you walk in with your

8:05 Frank and honest or your your uh real

8:07 rewards loyalty app you know we'll get a

8:09 prompt welcome or there's a sale today

8:11 three for two or something like that so

8:13 that's that engagement with the consumer

8:15 which is critical that handshake when

8:17 they come in the door and then some

8:19 other ideas then some actually some

8:21 practical things roll out a lot of

8:22 marketing screens it's all Wireless nice

8:25 right you're you're saving the retailer

8:27 again having to run cables with cables

8:30 what comes with cables as problems so so

8:32 we talked about the impact to retailers

8:34 they're they're able to get things done

8:36 fast they're able to actually you know

8:38 allocate resources to high value

8:40 products deployments are going you know

8:42 cutovers are fast what's been the impact

8:45 to your team how do they feel the

8:47 anecdote that I use at at work is from

8:50 an IT perspective right as opposed to

8:52 retail for from an IT

8:54 perspective 6 months ago I was outside

8:56 the library now someone has given me a

8:59 library card and I'm walking in and I

9:01 have all this information and miss dle

9:05 everything that we need with the AI

9:07 we've done great work on AIS Uh Kevin

9:09 mcarton our head Network our lead

9:11 network engineer what he's been able to

9:14 do regarding the storing of the configs

9:16 the automatic deployment to it in

9:18 advance of um of going into stores it's

9:21 it's transformative yeah speaking of

9:23 Kevin he picked up Automation and become

9:27 a passion now talk about any impact to

9:30 automation where were you before and

9:32 what does this enable so be before to

9:35 get a rout into a store right it it was

9:37 taken from a warehouse it was brought to

9:39 a config Center where we put the base

9:41 deployment on it then a network engineer

9:43 brought it to store and did the final

9:45 con configuration with work that Kevin

9:47 has done that's now off the shelf

9:50 basically from the warehouse into the

9:52 store with someone like Neil Collins who

9:54 isn't the network engineer and I'm I'm

9:57 configuring I'm just downloading the

9:58 config one one one touch and it's done

10:01 awesome awesome so complete

10:02 transformation in it processes and

10:05 enabling uh digital experience for

10:07 retail absolutely yes awesome thank you

10:09 so very much for the time Neil always

10:11 great catching up with you really

10:12 appreciate it you're more than welcome

10:14 yeah cheers thanks very much thank

10:19 you