Case Study - Retail
Business Overview
Salling Group is a leading retailer with a vast presence across Denmark, Poland, and other Nordic and Baltic countries. The company operates numerous stores and relies heavily on a large fleet of mobile devices, including Point Mobile, Bluebird, ELO, and Honeywell models, to manage daily retail operations, from inventory to customer-facing applications. Maintaining and securing this extensive device ecosystem is critical for ensuring operational efficiency and a seamless customer experience.
Challenges
For over a decade, Salling Group managed its device fleet with a competitor's MDM solution. However, this system presented several growing challenges:
- Rising Costs: The competitor's shift from one-time licenses to a subscription model led to significantly higher costs.
- On-Premise Management: The need to maintain on-premise infrastructure was becoming difficult to justify, requiring significant manual effort from the IT team.
- Limited Scalability: The existing setup lacked the agility and centralized control needed to efficiently manage a growing and geographically dispersed device fleet of over 13,700 devices.
Solution
As part of its digital transformation journey, Salling Group partnered with Delfi Technologies and 42Gears to implement SureMDM, selecting the platform for its scalability, flexibility, and ease of management. The deployment was structured to align closely with Salling Group's operational needs, with key features tailored to ensure a seamless migration and long-term efficiency gains:
- Cloud-Based Deployment: Moving to SureMDM's AWS-hosted platform eliminated the complexity of maintaining on-premise servers.
- Staged Migration: A store-by-store rollout across multiple countries over six weeks ensured minimal operational disruption.
- Zero-Touch Enrollment & Automation: Remote deployment methods, pre-configured builds, and zero-touch enrollment allowed the technical team to avoid physically handling thousands of devices.
- Customized Group Assignment: A bespoke solution automatically assigned devices to the correct store based on predefined criteria, simplifying device allocation and policy enforcement.
- Compliance Policies: Store-specific configurations were pushed automatically based on store ID, ensuring consistent security and operational settings.
- Remote Support & Kiosk Mode: Integrated features enabled efficient troubleshooting and delivered a consistent, secure customer-facing experience.
Results
The switch to SureMDM delivered measurable benefits for Salling Group, transforming their device management strategy:
- Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Centralized management, zero-touch deployment, and automated updates reduced the manual effort required from the IT team, freeing them to focus on strategic tasks.
- Increased Scalability and Reliability: The cloud-based solution provides the flexibility and scalability needed to manage Salling Group's growing device fleet across different regions seamlessly.
- Reduced Downtime: Robust remote support capabilities allowed for quick troubleshooting, minimizing device downtime and ensuring continuous operations.
- Seamless Migration: The entire migration of 13,700+ devices was completed within a tight 90-day timeline, with a crucial 3-month buffer period provided by 42Gears to ensure a smooth, cost-effective transition without paying for two MDM solutions simultaneously.
- And as a bonus: The move away from expensive subscription-based licenses ultimately delivered significant cost savings to the Salling Group.
CONCLUSION
Salling Group’s decision to migrate to SureMDM was driven by a need for a modern, cost-effective, and scalable solution to manage their vast device fleet. The collaboration between Salling Group, Delfi, and 42Gears was instrumental in the project’s success, with careful planning, technical expertise, and a flexible approach ensuring a fast and seamless implementation. SureMDM’s robust features and cloud infrastructure have not only solved Salling Group’s immediate challenges but have also positioned them for future growth and operational excellence.
TESTIMONIAL
"We have successfully reached our goal of creating a centralized command center for all our mobile devices. The implementation has provided both technical excellence and strategic partnership throughout the entire transformation process. Also, 42Gears SureMDM has been instrumental in creating operational confidence – delivering peace of mind for our IT administrators and ensuring smooth daily operations across all store locations."
- Rune Vilsgaard, Salling Group's IT Leadership Team
ABOUT SAILING GROUP
Salling Group stands as Denmark's retail powerhouse, serving 15 million customers and guests weekly across its comprehensive network of stores and restaurants. The organization employs over 53,000 dedicated team members and operates retail locations throughout Denmark, Germany, and Poland.
Salling Group's Brand Portfolio:
- Core Retail Chains: Netto, Føtex, Bilka, Salling, føtex.dk
- Specialty Retail: BR and Salling Department Stores
- Franchise Operations: Starbucks, Carl's Jr., Hugo Boss, and Martinique (Denmark)
- International Presence: Rimi grocery chain across the Baltic region
ABOUT DELFI TECHNOLOGIES
Delfi Technologies is a European solution provider founded in 1988, specializing in software and hardware solutions for the retail and logistics industries. The company helps businesses of all sizes - from local stores to global chains - digitize and streamline their operations through mobile devices and software, POS systems, printing solutions, and digital price tags. The solutions are used worldwide, supported by offices in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, and Vietnam. With more than 140 dedicated specialists, Delfi Technologies continuously develops innovative tools that connect people, processes, and technology across the entire value chain.