The Carlsberg Group, the world’s third-largest brewer, has chosen intelligent internet company Expereo to manage its internet connectivity in 40 countries at 160 sites in support of its global digital transformation journey.
Established in 1847 in a brewery just outside Copenhagen, the Carlsberg Group now has a portfolio spanning over 140 brands currently generating $10.6bn in revenue with over 40,000 employees and 140 brands in its portfolio. In addition to the core Carlsberg brand, it also owns 1664, Asfana, Birrifico, Brooklyn and Chongqing, among many others.
To support its activities, the group runs a network connecting over 200 sites across western and central Europe and the Asia regions. Yet the legacy network, built from different regional point services and technologies, proved to be challenging to manage for Carlsberg. Opening new locations took too long.
In particular, VPN performance into China was a problem, and across regions, the internet-based software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) connecting locations was found to be unsuitable for the company’s VoIP infrastructure and for fully utilising all of the features its Microsoft Office 365 service offered.
To address these issues, in August 2023 the company turned to Cato Networks for a single-supplier SASE deployment, and as a result was looking for a managed internet network partner to lead the consolidation of the current estate into one network infrastructure. It needed a partner who could ensure the network underlay could deliver the platform for their new SASE roll-out.
Carlsberg’s evolving market demands in over 40 countries across 160 sites also required the partner to have hyper-local knowledge and expertise.
Expereo said it was selected to implement and manage a new internet underlay network to ensure “seamless” performance wherever Carlsberg employees, partners and customers are located. This internet network is a critical component in ensuring Carlsberg had the secure, predictable global application performance they expected. It was vital that the chosen partner offered a managed internet service from a single partner, allowing the internal IT team at Carlsberg to focus on higher-priority tasks.
With five global support centres, and teams on the ground speaking the local language, the global internet network will be delivered by Expereo by the end of March 2024.
The provider said the real-time visibility and insight into network performance enabled by its expereoOne offering will be a game-changer for Carlsberg and partners, providing them with actionable insights and control over network performance and management.
“We wanted a partner that understands the internet and brings us unrivalled connectivity wherever we are located, enabling us to consolidate our network infrastructure as we move from several regional service providers with fragmented technical solutions to one integrated network and security stack,” said Carlsberg global director of networks Laurent Gaertner. “We are looking forward to the ongoing partnership and continuing on our journey to accelerate Carlsberg’s digital transformation.”