Coordinating office automation and network infrastructure DX across more than a hundred disparate firms can lead to cost savings and efficiencies.

A holding company that owns 170 retail companies such as 7-Eleven needed to focus on coordination and transition processes with each group company to ensure reliable integration of the office automation (OA) and network (NW) infrastructures.

As such, application virtualization was necessary for some of its companies to minimize the impact on the business applications of each company, and the company was looking for a stable infrastructure solution that was both easy to integrate and enabled flexible scaling out.

The holding company, Seven & i, also needed to minimize security risks associated with connecting the group companies digitally as part of its digital transformation (DX) journey.

The group is driving DX across the entire organization as part of its corporate growth strategy to constantly create and offer products and services that match changes in customer values and behavior. After drawing up a “Group DX Strategy Map” that delineates DX measures across the entire group, Seven & i decided to deploy integrated OA and NW infrastructures to achieve its DX goals. 

Said the firm’s Senior Officer, IT Infrastructure Department, Group DX Strategy and Planning Division, Hisashi Kobayashi: “We needed to implement a highly agile application virtualization that would enable us to speedily add new applications in line with changes in the business environment. With Nutanix, we were able to quickly build a platform that enables flexible scaling out, thereby avoiding excessive initial investment. The deployment of a platform that will provide more sophisticated security will enable us to achieve greater efficiency and enhanced security by implementing consistent security measures centrally and reducing costs.”

The aforementioned platform by Nutanix is expected to enable Seven & i to enhance group-wide security and standardize endpoints without relying on business applications that have been used by group companies. It will also help to significantly curb group company IT investment.