Drakes Supermarkets has overhauled its IT systems with cloud company Nutanix.
Working with Nutanix and Adelaide-based IT partner, Nuago, the retailer has replaced its ageing IT environment with Nutanix Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI).
The new infrastructure now supports Drakes’ $125 million, state-of-the-art automated distribution centre in South Australia’s Edinburgh North. This includes the DC’s advanced robotics technology, warehouse management, POS, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems – enabling the retailer to access and respond to real-time stock demand.
“We’ve seen our warehousing and IT requirements more than double in the past few weeks, but we’ve maintained 100% availability across all of our systems,” says Drakes IT Manager Phillip Romano.
“We can now focus on taking care of our communities’ shopping needs, getting those staff who can do to work remotely, and hire new staff directly from the increasing pool of unemployed Australians.”
Looking ahead
With Nutanix proving its prowess and resilience during the current COVID-19 pandemic, Drakes says it will aim to expand the HCI environment across all stores and wholesale arms.
Longer term, Drakes will aim to leverage the Nutanix Xi IoT edge intelligence platform – which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide real-time data insights – along with video analytics, to create new personalised experiences for customers.
The retailer is also considering migrating to the Nutanix AHV hypervisor to support Drakes’ 250 virtual machines (VMs).
“While consumers are currently flooding into supermarkets, the retail industry as a whole continues to experience unprecedented levels of pressure, competition and consolidation,” says Mr Romano.
“To remain competitive and retain customer loyalty, we need to drive efficiency and create personalised experiences. We see Nutanix and Nuago as key to building the technology and infrastructure we need to do that.”