INDUSTRY WATCH

undergoing a fundamental change . Work and office environments are changing as a result of digitalisation , new leadership , organisational cultures and the growing importance of the home office . One company that has been shaping this change for a long time is the Austrian Bene Group . The international office expert is specialised in furnishing modern office and work environments . Bene develops innovative concepts with high design quality and provides tailormade solutions for all sizes of companies – from start-ups to mediumsized businesses and global corporations .

Bene ’ s company history goes back well over 200 years . The company originally emerged from a joinery founded in 1790 . But today , Bene is anything but a traditional company . The manufacturer relies on agile methods and lean , orderdriven just-in-time production that can be quickly adapted to changing market and customer requirements .

“ End-to-end digitalised processes with highly flexible data organisation are a key prerequisite for our strategy ,” said Joerg Baumgartner , CIO at Bene . “ This is the only way we are able to offer our customers such a varied product range at competitive costs .”

The digital ‘ customer journey ’ begins with the first consultation . Thanks to state-of-the-art planning software with support for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality , customers can get an early idea of their future office environment and take a virtual look around the planned rooms . As soon as the order is signed , all necessary data is transferred to production planning and production starts . In just-in-time production , all work processes are highly automated and connected – even beyond the company ’ s borders : many of Bene ’ s suppliers are also integrated into the order and production process via digital interfaces .

“ Consistent digitalisation at all levels also means for us that without a functioning IT system , our production comes to a standstill very quickly ,” said Baumgartner . “ If a critical application were to fail for more than 24 hours , there would already be noticeable delays in delivery and loss of sales .”

Bene must therefore ensure that all important IT resources for development , design and production are available without interruption if possible – not only at the headquarters in Waidhofen an der Ybbs , but also in the more than 20 other branches worldwide . The company was therefore looking for a powerful backup solution that would reliably protect the company ’ s digital processes . The software previously used for this purpose could no longer keep pace with the growing requirements .

The Veeam solution

After evaluating different solution variants , Bene decided to use Veeam Backup & Replication . “ The overall package convinced us from the very beginning ,” said Baumgartner . “ Veeam combines in one solution all the functions we need for the simple and reliable backup and recovery of our workloads . It not only allows us to maximise the availability www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO

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