Farro Fresh was experiencing security issues that hindered them from serving their customers. Fed up with this, they started looking for ways to improve the security of their digital technologies.
When Farro approached us with this issue, we recommended to work with one of our long-time partners, WatchGuard.
Here’s an interview that talks about the problems Farro was having and how WatchGuard helped.
WatchGuard Background
Kurt Brandon, Sales Manager, start off by sharing some background on WatchGuard.
“So, WatchGuard have been in business for 20 plus years. We’re one of the original developers of hardware firewalls and our focus all those years has been the small to medium business market…Also, on distributed enterprise of which Farro comes into that market.”
The Importance of Digital Technologies
As with most businesses today, digital technologies is very important. Yet, most businesses aren’t thinking about how they can protect them.
Until something happens.
Simon Foley, Data and IT Man
“Farro is a supermarket chain. We have six stores around Auckland, about 350 staff at the moment.”
“Without digital technologies, we wouldn’t exist. Literally every part of the business we have, including alarms and notifications, is all about having a strong underlying, safe network.”
He then highlights the importance of proactively putting systems in place to protect these digital systems…
“Security is an ongoing concern in any company. Our business has experienced issues with security in the past, and they have impacted the business in quite some serious ways. Nothing’s ever been compromised, but it certainly had affected our ability to allow our staff to do their job properly.”
Having the confidence in our IT partner to provide stuff that gives us security and confidence in our systems…[it] means that instead of spending the day worrying about what could happen, we can actually plan for the future of the business.
Simon Foley, Data and IT Manager
Early Beginnings of the Project
When asked about his impressions of us, Simon says, “When we met with iT360 for the first time, in January 2018, our impressions of the guys were, that they were very professional, that they were of a size to help us, and that they had the skills and knowledge, and access to other people with their skills and knowledge, to actually provide us with the things that we were looking for.”
iT360 and WatchGuard Partnership
“iT360 are our long term Watchguard partner. They’ve been a gold partner for a number of years. And they also run our managed services offering,” says Kurt.
Having worked with WatchGuard for a long time, we are confident in their products. We also love working with them. That’s why when we were discussing the needs of Farro, we immediately know that WatchGuard is a partner we can bring in to help them with they cyber security issues.
“So when they were talking to Farro Fresh they approached me about how we would build a network for them, how we would deliver that, and from there, we viewed the compromise that they’d had and looked at how we would protect them going forward.”
Future Proofing the Business
After a year and a half, Farro has never encountered any security issue in their network. This eventually helped shift their perspective. Instead of worrying about security issues, they can now focus on the future.
“Having the confidence in our IT partner to provide stuff that gives us security and confidence in our systems…[it] means that instead of spending the day worrying about what could happen, we can actually plan for the future of the business.”
To learn more about the details of how we helped Farro and other businesses like them, check out our case studies here.
