Headquartered in Syracuse, New York, Kinney Drugs has over 128 drugstores and pharmacies in 6 North Eastern states.
Challenge
Kinney Drugs was facing significant challenges with its wireless infrastructure. Each time there was a firmware upgrade on their wireless controllers, their entire wireless environment would go down. Additionally, manufacturer support was limited, and network security was a concern.
Network downtime was causing a loss in revenue, employee productivity, and customer satisfaction. Unreliable wireless connectivity prevented distribution centers from processing inventory on schedule and in real time.
The distribution centers rely on wireless connectivity to manage inventory and fulfill orders for each of their stores across the northeast. Intermittent wireless was impacting customer experience and needed to be addressed. Kinney Drugs recognized the need for a fast, secure, reliable, and quickly deployable wireless network to deliver the company’s objectives.
Solution
M.A. Polce Consulting conducted a wireless assessment of Kinney Drugs’ warehouse locations to scope and design placement of a new solution that would best serve their business objectives. With 128 retail locations across six different states, Kinney Drugs required a robust cloud-managed solution providing remote network management, visibility, and facilitating quick deployment.
M.A. Polce Consulting recommended a Cisco Meraki solution with 191 access points deployed in 4 easy steps. To further demonstrate the usability and clean design of Cisco Meraki, M.A. Polce deployed MR33/MR72 demos across the warehouse and various retail locations for the team to experience first-hand. Kinney Drugs immediately saw the benefit of a 100 percent cloud-managed solution to achieve faster deployment with little to no downtime.
100% cloud-managed for faster deployment, simplified administration, and richer visibility
Business Outcome
Kinney Drugs can now centrally control and monitor 191 network access points scattered across the northeast with the ease, visibility, and scalability needed. Real-time monitoring of devices via a centralized dashboard saves hours and increases employee productivity. With Meraki’s cloud-managed IT administration portal, rich security, and network visibility, Kinney Drugs IT spends immeasurably less time on troubleshooting and management. Complete network visibility and remote access to control the wireless from a single pane of glass allowed M.A. Polce and Kinney Drugs to deploy 191 access points promptly with no business downtime.
The impact of this deployment was immediately noticeable in Kinney Drugs’ business operations and bottom-line revenue. Fast and reliable connectivity reduced the warehouse-to-store inventory turnover time almost two-fold. The solution was built to scale and configured with location analytics, providing Kinney Drugs with wireless-driven insights to serve its customers better.
Scalable, reliable, and secure wireless has opened up new use cases for point-of-sale transactions at each Kinney Drugs store. Wireless is being leveraged for prescription acceptance and on-demand inventory verification on handheld scanners at 128 retail locations. Kinney Drugs sees M.A. Polce Consulting as a trusted advisor leading successful state-of-the-art integration of Meraki Wireless with their complex network. Thanks to the guidance provided by M.A. Polce Consulting, Kinney Drugs is enjoying the benefits of cloud management, increased employee productivity, and greater sales.
