Case Study: Sonoma Wines
Company background
Headquartered in Napa, California, Sonoma Wines is one of the largest wine producers in the Napa Valley. In 1966, Robert Vintage set out on his own to found the first major winery built in the valley since Prohibition: Sonoma Wines. With the introduction of his first Cabernet Sauvignon in the late 1960s, the eyes of the world were opened to the potential of the Napa Valley region. The historic Paris tasting event in 1976 gave Sonoma Wines first prize. Sonoma Wines was born from a tradition of exceptional wine-making, and it is devoted to creating wines that articulate the singular expressions of the vineyards in the valley. Sonoma Wines is based on a philosophy of producing 100% varietal, singlevineyard wines that best express the distinct personality of each vineyard. The current releases include two lines: Napa Valley Chardonnay, Merlot, Syrah, and Cabernet Sauvignon, and Russian River Valley Chardonnay, Syrah, and Zinfandel. Winemaker and President Darice Vintage, son of Robert Vintage, said that in addition to making each wine, he is sourcing vineyards to meet the production plans. We are not just seeking out any vineyard. Every aspect of each vineyard must be top-notch, including the soil and the climate, but we also want to know that the site is proven ground. We look at who the neighbors are, who the vineyard manager is, and whether the grower will be willing to do whatever it takes to make the best of the vineyard.
Sonoma Wines
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Case 1
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Current technology environment
Today, Sonoma Wines operates a sophisticated automated call center with predictive dialing capabilities and several mission-critical business applications, including a customer relationship management (CRM) system. With service, convenience, and diversity at the heart of its product offerings, the company is particularly reliant on the integrity and availability of its information technology (IT) infrastructure. The company also has an increasing global presence in the European wine market, so the major challenge for Sonoma Wine is to make its business more manageable and more efficient. Ten years ago, the winery management team recognized that future expansion would need to be driven by a robust and agile IT infrastructure. What followed was the implementation of SAP All in One, a core set of business applications designed to streamline business processes such as financials, purchasing, and inventory management. A proprietary CRM system was also developed to better manage marketing campaigns and customer interaction from all touch points, including phone, web, mail, and personal contact. When Steve Merlot joined Sonoma Wines a month ago as information systems (IS) manager, he was faced with an unreliable IT infrastructure that was failing users, hampering productivity, and increasing operational costs. Merlot needed to determine which parts of the company networks, servers, applications, routers or operating systems were causing the performance issues being raised, and where operational efficiencies could be improved. In his previous job, Merlot managed an IT environment that was entirely HP products and services. He became familiar with the HP technology platform and often purchased HP consulting services to help manage the environment. When he joined Sonoma Wines, he knew he would be making a call to his HP sales representative. His initial investigation uncovered the following about the mainframe server, network, applications, and printing capabilities: Mainframe The IBM System 370 mainframe is in need of upgrading. The mainframe has a large footprint in the data center. Cooling costs are increasing and the annual support contract is up for renewal next month. IBM has already submitted a new software licensing and support contract proposing a price of $100,000 per month (USD), which is double what Sonoma Wines has been paying. In addition, the Sonoma Wines system administrator, who has been supporting the mainframe for 30 years, will be retiring in three months.
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Case Study: Sonoma Wines
Network The existing network had two major failures in the last six months. Performance and bandwidth is a major problem. There is no redundancy in the network. SAP applications The SAP servers are approaching their end of life and are already at full capacity. The IT team has reported increasing performance degradation, longer dialog response times, lengthier batch processing jobs, more frequent out-ofmemory errors from ad hoc user processes, and extremely high processor utilization rates within the SAP environment. Printing The cost of printing labels for wine bottles was $1 million (USD) over the last annual budget and is expected to increase this fiscal year. Clearly there is an opportunity to reduce printing and copying costs for the company.
Technology challenges
In general, Sonoma Wines is facing the following challenges: 1. 2. 3. The business needs to become more manageable and efficient. The organization needs to reduce its operational and administrative overhead costs. The chief executive officer (CEO) wants to increase the research and development (R&D) budget for lab research into new wines, but does not know where the money will come from. (Increasing the cost of each bottle of wine might impact sales.) There is an obvious need to boost SAP processing capabilities. IT needs to mitigate the end-of-life risk for older servers in the SAP and AS/400 environment. They need to shorten batch processing run times and eliminate out-of-memory errors. They need to improve functionality and database information management. They need to consolidate and reduce the number of production application servers. The business needs to source a durable, high-quality way to reduce costs for an in-house printing solution.
4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
10. They need to produce a wide range of print labels for the broad selection of wines. 11. They need to reduce the levels of manual intervention required for long print runs. 12. The unstable network infrastructure needs to be addressed.
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Case 3
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Day 2 assignment
Based on your discussion with Merlot about his investigation into the current environment, answer the following questions: 1. What is important to Sonoma Wines from a business perspective? ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. 2. What is important to Sonoma Wines from a technical perspective? ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. 3. What KPIs would the IS manager be most interested in tracking? ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................
Day 2 homework
HP Enterprise Mobility solution screen
For homework, complete these steps: 1. Go to the Enterprise Solutions web page on the HP intranet at: [Link]
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Case Study: Sonoma Wines
2.
Read the introductory paragraph for each of the solutions that have not been discussed in-depth in this class:
3.
Application Transformation Information Optimization Enterprise Security Enterprise Mobility Managed Print Services
If time is available, review the information provided through the tabs on the left side of each enterprise solution screen, which can include:
Executive overviews Customer facing presentations Elevator pitches Wins and case studies Solution proofs of concept (POCs)
The Day 3 exercise asks you to consider what you learn about these solutions.
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Case 5
Welcome to HP, ESSN & TS, and HP Software
Day 3 assignment
Considering the new information you learned today and what you learned from the Day 2 HP Enterprise Solutions website homework, answer the following questions about Sonoma Wines: 1. Which HP solution or solutions would best meet the challenges of Sonoma Wines? ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. 2. Why did you choose this solution? ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. 3. What would you do to ensure a successful customer experience for Sonoma Wines? (Consider how your role at HP makes your contribution to the customer experience different from that of other roles.) ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................
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