Total Wine & More drives innovation in ecommerce and inventory management with multicloud

This fine wine, spirits and beer retailer met diverse business needs with migrations to both Azure and Google Cloud, backed by Rackspace managed services.

Total Wine Digital Case Study Indústria Retail Desafio

Total Wine needed the flexibility to scale in response to growing demand, along with a services partner that could provide consistent, high-quality support for both Google Cloud and Azure. The partner also had to agree to terms that worked for both parties.

Outcome The retailer adopted two public cloud platforms, selecting the best cloud for each of its major technology initiatives. It chose Rackspace to provide flexible managed support and gained valuable cloud optimization expertise as an added benefit. Soluções Optimizer+, Rackspace Elastic Engineering Plataformas Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure

Professional & Managed Services

Managed Services

Cliente

Total Wine & More is America's Wine Superstore®. As the largest independent retailer of fine wine, the company sells 8,000+ varieties of wine, more than 3,000 types of spirits and more than 2,500 beers. Started in 1991 by two brothers, David and Robert Trone, in a small store in Delaware, Total Wine now operates 284 superstores across 29 states and is always expanding.

Along with low prices, the customer-focused company is also committed to providing exceptional customer service. The Total Wine team includes 2,000+ wine service members and 427 wine experts, all dedicated to creating a great wine-buying experience.

“When we started working with the Rackspace team, we could tell they were going to provide more technical guidance than our previous vendor. And they were going to be more flexible on how things could get done, which is exactly what we needed.”
Rob DeSantos, VP of Infrastructure and Workplace Solutions, Total Wine & More
Woman picking up wine

Situação

When Total Wine & More set out to advance its digital transformation and move from its on-premises data center to the cloud, it was time to make several critical decisions. The retailer had to decide which public cloud to employ and what service provider to partner with.

After assessing its needs, the company chose not one, but two cloud platforms: Microsoft® Azure® and Google Cloud. Total Wine had excellent reasons for going multicloud. Its inventory system was tightly woven into the Microsoft ecosystem, making Azure a natural home for expanding that part of its business.

“Our inventory system is homegrown and built on a Microsoft stack platform,” noted Rob DeSantos, VP of Infrastructure and Workplace Solutions at Total Wine & More. “We're modernizing it right now. That is why we moved from on-premises to Azure.”

To meet its ecommerce challenges, Total Wine wanted to leverage the power of Google Cloud’s BigQuery. “We researched the marketplace for an ideal solution to our ecommerce needs, but nothing compared with BigQuery,” noted DeSantos. “It's the best of the best. So, we decided to build our new enterprise data analytics platform with BigQuery.”

Choosing a cloud partner was a little more challenging. While cost was a big concern, the choice came down to more than just pricing. Total Wine needed flexible technology support, deep expertise aligned to its environment and a willingness to meet the company where it was and grow with it. The ideal option, according to the company, was Rackspace Technology®.

“Choosing Rackspace as a technology partner was a pretty natural move for us,” said DeSantos. “We’ve worked with them since 2014 on initiatives like DevOps, adding CI/CD pipelines for our containers and automating database deployments. But we didn’t fully realize their potential as a broader services partner until we began researching cloud options.

“Once we started talking about a managed services relationship, the conversations were very productive,” DeSantos added. “We also saw the depth of technical resources they could bring. Those resources are especially valuable when we’re not upskilling or expanding our internal team due to budget constraints. Everything just fell into place with Rackspace as our services partner.”

Total Wine Digital Case Study

“Rackspace brings highly knowledgeable technical resources to the table.And those resources come in handy at times when we're not upskilling and upscaling our internal resources. We love working with our Rackspace teams.”

 

Rob DeSantos, VP of Infrastructure and Workplace Solutions, Total Wine & More
Total Wine Digital Case Study

Soluções

With its multicloud strategy set and Rackspace Technology® selected as its managed services provider, Total Wine gained access to a broad range of services and deep technical expertise. Rackspace worked with the retailer to align those capabilities with its technology goals through both ongoing services and a commit agreement.

  • Rackspace Elastic Engineering: Engineers and architects from the Rackspace Elastic Engineering team provided ongoing support as Total Wine modernized its inventory system and migrated core backend operations to Azure. They helped automate tasks that would have been delayed or deprioritized, such as implementing Terraform to synchronize DNS records across both clouds. “Going multicloud stretches your technical resources, but Rackspace Elastic Engineering helps bridge the gap,” said DeSantos. “We trusted that team to do a great job.”
  • Rackspace DBA Services: With the shift from an on-premises operation to the cloud and migration of critical systems to Azure and Google Cloud, Rackspace DBA Services helped ensure that Total Wine’s databases supporting both its ecommerce and inventory systems were expertly managed and optimized for availability, reliability and performance. Database specialists from Rackspace enabled Total Wine’s lean technical team to maximize efficiency and reduce operational risk.
  • Rackspace Optimizer+: This service supplied the retailer with deep, strategic business insight that it hadn’t anticipated needing. It played a key role in cost optimization and cloud resource management, enabling significant savings while maintaining best-in-class performance. Through proactive monitoring, tailored recommendations and automated optimizations, Rackspace Optimizer+ helped Total Wine save 20% year-to-date, providing the financial flexibility to invest further in innovation and digital transformation.
  • BigQuery: Total Wine harnessed the power of Google Cloud by building its enterprise data analytics platform on BigQuery. This enables the retailer to efficiently process and analyze large volumes of data, driving smarter decision-making and enhancing overall business intelligence in support of its digital innovation strategy and growth plans.
  • Google Cloud Commit: This negotiated agreement gives Total Wine discounted pricing in exchange for specific usage commitments, providing predictable costs that support its long-term cloud strategy.

“With our Rackspace partnership, it’s not just the tools we’ve acquired; it’s the people,” said DeSantos. “The extremely talented Rackers we work with aren’t just problem-solvers. They’re partners who know our team on a first-name basis and continually impress us with both their technical depth and soft skills.”

“I would even argue that their soft skills are an equal strength,” DeSantos added. “The Rackspace team listens better to their customers than others we’ve talked with. Their genuine willingness to listen and their flexibility keep us coming back.”

DeSantos added, “We can throw a challenging question at Rackspace and see if they have somebody who can help. More than half the time, and often closer to 80% of the time, the Rackspace team brings better resources to the table, leading to more productive conversations. It’s a consistent pattern.”

Going forward, Total Wine will use Rackspace services to strengthen its personalized customer experience initiatives and further optimize its use of BigQuery.

Rackspace Optimizer+ helped Total Wine save 20% YTD.

Resultado

Through its partnership with Rackspace Technology, Total Wine has driven innovation and efficiency beyond its original goals. A key differentiator has been transforming cost optimization from a necessary task into a catalyst for innovation.

“With the FinOps program and Optimizer+, we don’t just receive another set of dashboards or reports. We get actionable insights and the expertise to dig deeper,” said DeSantos. “Through regular reviews and expert analysis, we continue to improve efficiency and keep technology at the forefront of business growth and innovation.”

DeSantos  added, “Our regular touchpoints with Rackspace challenge us, in the best way, to step back and ask: Are we operating as efficiently as we think? Are there hidden opportunities for savings or improvement? They show us financial trends, pinpoint areas where we can improve and provide the outside perspective that makes us sharper, more disciplined and more innovative.

“Rackspace has helped us foster a culture where efficiency and innovation work together,” DeSantos concluded. “With their support, we make smart cost decisions today so we can invest in what’s next tomorrow.”

Sobre a Rackspace Technology

A Rackspace Technology é especialista em soluções multinuvem. Combinamos nossa experiência com as melhores tecnologias do mundo, em aplicativos, dados e segurança, para fornecer soluções de ponta a ponta. Temos um histórico comprovado de assessoria aos clientes com base nos desafios do negócio, desenvolvendo soluções escalonáveis, construindo e gerenciando essas soluções e otimizando os retornos no futuro.

Como pioneiros globais em serviços de tecnologia multinuvem, fornecemos recursos inovadores da nuvem para ajudar os clientes a gerar novos fluxos de receita, aumentar a eficiência e criar experiências incríveis. Considerada um dos melhores lugares para se trabalhar por anos consecutivos de acordo com a Fortune, a Forbes e o Glassdoor, atraímos e desenvolvemos talentos de alto nível para oferecer a melhor experiência para os nossos clientes. Tudo o que fazemos está envolto em nossa obsessão pelo sucesso dos nossos clientes – nossa Fanatical Experience™ – para que possam trabalhar com mais rapidez e inteligência, à frente do que está por vir.

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