Farmer harvesting grain in the fields with a tractor

CASE STUDY

Farmers Mutual Group

See why fast-growing FMG is embracing a strategic partnership with 2degrees for specialised business insights and managed services. 

Industry: Insurance, specifically rural insurance.
Problem: FMG needed modern network solutions for growth.
Solution: Partnered with 2degrees for managed network services.
Outcome: Enhanced network performance, reliability, and capacity.

Like most fast-growing organisations, FMG has ever more complex technology needs. Christian Hayes, who heads FMG’s technology and service delivery team, says it needed both day-to-day help and external thought leadership to move things forward. The organisation wanted to update to Microsoft Windows 10 and Office365. It also wanted to conduct company-wide video conferencing. It sees an increased role for cloud in its future. To get there, FMG needed a modern network architecture. Its network shopping list included faster connections, better security and improved reliability at each site.

Rural insurer FMG recognised it wanted more than a traditional technology provider relationship. To get there, it developed a partnership strategy. Hayes says that meant looking for one or more specialists able to get a better understanding of the business, play a strategic role and offer forward-looking guidance. It found the answer in the form of a managed service partnership.

In the past FMG used its own people to handle the technology work. Hayes says the previous technology provider did a fine job, but it took a transactional approach to the relationship. He says: “Say we purchased WiFi technology from a particular provider. We’d set it up ourselves and run it. We would contact the provider and ask for a network link for a specific purpose.”

FARMERS MUTUAL GROUP
"We wanted to move closer to a network-as-a-service model. That's where our partner would provide and run the whole end-to-end process, right down to the access layer switches."
Photo of Christian Hayes
Head of Technology and Service Delivery at FMG
Christian Hayes
Head of Technology and Service Delivery

As the organization has grown, so has the complexity of our IT services, which has become increasingly challenging. The partnership strategy aimed to relieve the internal tech team, allowing them to focus on value-added services instead of basic tasks like networking and desktop support. Hayes notes that the current provider lacked a modern network architecture necessary for an internet-first approach. "We wanted to transition to a network-as-a-service model, where our partner manages the entire end-to-end process, including access layer switches," he explains.

Previously, a single internet connection supported FMG’s 32 offices through the provider's Wellington base, accessed via a legacy WAN. This setup faced latency issues and significant capacity constraints, with only a 500 mbps connection for the whole organization. Hayes adds, “Our modern WiFi system underperformed, limiting users’ mobility within the office and lacking robust service levels.”

2degrees is providing FMG with a Meraki-based SD-WAN, LAN and WiFi managed service that covers network-as-a-service and mobile as a service. There’s a low-latency layer 2 software defined wide area network. The whole is supported with granular reporting and network control. Each of the organisation’s 32 sites has SD-WAN local internet breakout. A managed firewall provides security. The design goal was to deliver these services without impacting business operations.

Hayes says with 2degrees, each of the organisation’s sites has as much capacity as the single internet pipe in the previous network. Where necessary, there are redundant links. He says: “I estimated that we now have about 20 times the bandwidth. Network performance is one benefit. Another is reliability. Since we’ve moved the network has been very stable. “This has completely transformed what we are able to do. 2degrees also provides mobile data connections for our mobile phone fleet.”

Photo looking down on a herd of cows making their way into a milking shed

One illustration of how 2degrees SD-WAN has changed life for FMG is that, as part of its move to Windows 10 and Office365, the organisation rolled out 800 laptops. Hayes says: “We went for the modern approach. Rather than build an image and copying or factory installing it, we sent the laptops out in a thin format. Then when a person logged on for the first time, they would download all the updates and applications that they needed at the local site. This takes a lot of bandwidth, yet we managed to do it without impacting all the other services. It could have taken weeks to do the old way, instead, with 2degrees SD-WAN, it took a couple of hours.

” FMG’s longer term plans include getting more from cloud computing. Hayes says the organisation has a significant data centre in Palmerston North. He says: “The 2degrees network is the first stop in our plan to move that data centre into Microsoft Azure. We’ll start the transition process next year, but it wasn’t practical, or even possible, to do anything without the network.

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