The rollout.
With 95,000 employees and over 2,600 sales outlets, Coop is one of the largest retail and wholesale companies in Switzerland. Nowadays, more and more purchases are made via self-scanning systems or with the smartphone. The demands on IT systems are therefore rising constantly - and so is the need for more bandwidth.
The goals set by Swisscom in cooperation with cablex are very high. By the end of March 2023, more than 1,000 points of sale are to be migrated to the Enterprise Connect solution. At the same time, 50 administrative and production sites as well as distribution centres will also be migrated by mid-2023. Wide-scale migration started in mid-May 2022, and work continued until calendar week 45. We are now in the "frozen zone" until the beginning of January 2023. No network maintenance or migrations will be carried out during this period.
The cablex team in action.
As of mid-November, 950 locations had been migrated. In some cases, the work plan included 50 sites per week. cablex was in action with 57 technicians. We were only able to manage this thanks to the committed cooperation of all contractual partners, both from Swisscom and cablex as well as from the customer's side.
Our task in the Coop rollout is to convert the existing LAN-I connections to the Enterprise Connect solutions EC-M and EC-XS. In specific terms, this means that both the First and DualNet routers need to be replaced at the customer's premises.
For this process, a checklist was drawn up with the customer, which is adhered to strictly during the installation work. The order can only be completed once all of the work steps have been confirmed. Labelling the new routers with the number of the customer branch, the hardware and the line is also part of our job!
The project manager of Swisscom, Daniel Mavon, was full of praise when it came to the joint effort in the Coop project:
I thank you all for your commitment. It was not always easy for you, and I was also sometimes very demanding to make sure we achieved the goals. But I have always been able to count on your willingness and your tireless commitment. The colleagues from cablex have improved with each new assignment, and they identified problems early on and solved them independently. Without you, we would not be where we are today. cablex dispatching was also always ready to handle the adjustments, which were often made at very short notice, competently and professionally.
Daniel Mavon, project manager Swisscom.
Important process: dispatching.
Dispatching plays an important role in this extensive rollout. Thanks to the continuous exchange between the team and project management online, it's possible to react quickly to unforeseen difficulties. Our cablex technicians are actively connected with each other via Teams chat during their assignments, and can therefore solve problems very quickly and to the satisfaction of the customer.
I (from Communication) accompanied two colleagues on their assignments and was able to experience this unique online exchange. An error actually occurred during a router installation, and this was discussed in the team. All colleagues provided support to fix the problem together with our cablex technician on site. In the end, a cablex colleague brought a new router to the site spontaneously, which was then put into operation together. Super commitment and team effort in this individual case.
It was possible to migrate the largest share of Coop locations, including Jumbo outlets, by mid-November, 2022. We are proud of the very positive customer feedback from Peter Weisskopf, Head of Telecom Services at Coop:
I would like to sincerely thank the whole EC rollout team for their super performance during the EC rollout. I know that I can rely on professional planning and organisation in this area. I'm also aware of the performance of the entire rollout team during the implementation activities at the various, individual locations. It's not always easy to carry out the conversion work on site. Please keep up the great motivation, the pace and the quality until the end of the project.
Peter Weisskopf, Head of Telecom Services at Coop.
