Customer Stories

With more than 700 permanent staff, numerous sites across New Zealand, and international offices in the UK, Ireland, and Australia, Livestock Improvement Corporation’s (LIC) networking requirements were outgrowing the infrastructure it had in place. 

To ensure LIC had the connectivity and stability it needed to continue supporting the thousands of New Zealand farmers who rely on them, The Instillery, empowered by our partners, Lightwire Business & Megaport, delivered an SD-WAN solution that revolutionised how LIC and its staff stay connected.

Watch the short case video below and read on to learn more.

Public cloud offers new capabilities for Kiwi organisations such as agility, and resource elasticity. When managed well, a business can accelerate the use of digital in their market for a competitive advantage. Find out how Autoplay has done just that by utilising The Instillery’s Cloud Foundations managed services package to access cloud-native monitoring, automation, security and cost visibility. What is The Instillery’s Cloud Foundations service? The Instillery’s Cloud Foundations is a managed service designed specifically for cloud. It offers organisations the opportunity to hook into a well managed public cloud, offering proactive optimisation of cloud usage. Build a rock solid base for cloud innovation with The Instillery’s co-pilot support where the teamwork in collaboration with an organisation’s tech teach, sharing access to tools for total transparency and control. Cloud Foundations is all about getting the most value out of public cloud. How does technology play a part in Autoplay’s business? AutoPlay Group operates two highly dependent technology businesses delivering internationally to the real estate and automotive industries. AutoPlay’s Virtual Show Home is used by real estate agencies for the building and display of up to 7000 videos across websites, Facebook pages and YouTube channels each month. Video is seen as a crucial marketing tool with over 250,000 videos watched every day across Australasia’s leading brands. While AutoPlay’s smart digital tools are used by over 80% of new car franchise dealerships in New Zealand and a number of leading Australian dealerships networks. Customer management tools are used to provide full management across the sales cycle, including a range of digital forms and mobile applications. AutoPlay’s primary focus will always be its customers - even if the underlying services are very reliant on technology. So, it’s always been important for Autoplay to partner with technology providers that are at the forefront of the industry and who have a deep understanding of what’s available, saleable and cost-effective. Why did Autoplay move to The Instillery’s Cloud Foundations service? For AutoPlay, selecting AWS with a management partner allowed the organisation to achieve their end customer requirements of high-availability across time zones, scale on demand, security and cost management. Autoplay says that while AWS brings many advantages to its business it still requires proactive management so from day one this was managed through an AWS business partner. The move to The Instillery’s Cloud Foundations package was prompted by a lack of foresight and guidance from the incumbent business partner. There was a feeling that AutoPlay was falling behind in the use of current AWS products and solutions and the management tools were lacking. Plus the core AWS hosting costs were escalating. How has Autoplay found The Instillery experience? The Instillery provided expertise from the get-go - reviewing, recommending and producing a roadmap of changes to allow AutoPlay to make the most of our investment in AWS. This has led to a complete update of the existing toolset and far better utilisation of the existing services. All under the existing spend. The Instillery are great guys, backed by a responsive team who know their stuff!

Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC), the dairy farmer-owned herd improvement cooperative, has once again awarded its Managed User Computing services and IT hardware contracts to The Instillery.

The terms of the deal see LIC and The Instillery enter a new two-year collaboration with a one-year right of renewal, extending on their previous six-year relationship. The Instillery provides the organisation with technology services and systems to support LIC and LIC Automation’s users’ desktops, laptops and mobile devices, extending across New Zealand and its international operations. LIC is New Zealand's largest supplier of genetic services and provides technology solutions to the dairy industry which aid in the creation of superior livestock and livestock performance, and improved farm productivity and decision making. The organisation has a staff of more than 600 employees and 1000 devices. Its head office is in Newstead, Hamilton and the organisation has offices globally, including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Brazil, plus distributors in China, Japan, South Africa and South America. 

Paul Littlefair, CIO of LIC, says the contracts were awarded to The Instillery as a result of their clear understanding of LIC's business needs, innovative service and tool-sets, and a proven track record of exceptional customer service. “The Instillery have an innate understanding of our business and provide us with the IT support, agility and responsiveness our business needs in today’s global and digital marketplace.” 

Jason Trower, board member of The Instillery says that through this new agreement The Instillery will bring new innovation and efficiencies to LIC's operations, supporting LIC to deliver on its strategic objectives. “LIC’s vision is to improve the prosperity and productivity of farmers and we’re looking forward to further strengthening their ability to do so by providing service management capabilities and tool-sets to contribute to their ongoing innovation in the dairy sector.” 

“We are working with a wider variety of New Zealand businesses and organisations than ever before and it’s reassuring to see companies such as LIC, among other new customers, share our vision of innovation and improvement achieved through technology, mirroring The Instillery’s ongoing investment in tools, capabilities and methodologies."

Conroy Removals have been moving New Zealanders for over 45 years. They are one of New Zealand's leading removal companies and each year take care of removal services for thousands of people moving locally, around New Zealand and all over the world. Conroy removals have been moving New Zealanders for over 45 years. The family owned firm is one of Australasia’s leading residential and corporate moving firms. In 1999 Conroys expanded into Australia and continued the success they have experienced in New Zealand. With staff now totaling over 300 on both sides of the Tasman they have experienced significant growth in recent years. After a calculated review process, Conroys selected The Instillery Hawkes Bay to be their long term IT partner. As part of the overall solution The Instillery proposed hosting Conroys core server infrastructure including customer website transaction engine in The Instillery’s local data centre together with out of region backup. After a review of the existing WAN design, The Instillery worked with Conroys’ WAN provider to come up with an improved topology which not only removed bottlenecks in several places but also reduced risks and costs. The transition to this new arrangement was carefully planned and involved Conroys WAN provider and previous IT provider. One of the Conroys’ key motivations behind their decision to partner with The Instillery was the strategic planning and guidance that The Instillery is able to provide their business. The Instillery employ vCIOs across their business who provide direction on a range of business and technology related activities. "Technology have become major drivers in our business today, and with our ever increasing dependence we are acutely aware of the greater need for reliability, cyber security and risk management. Our initial interaction with The Instillery was to conduct an in depth assessment of our infrastructure and gather an understanding of ambitions moving into the future. The results of that process were the catalyst for us to embark on a partnership with The Instillery. It is rewarding to have a partner on board who is dedicated to helping and guiding us through these exciting times."  David Conroy – Managing Director "It is rewarding to have a partner on board who is dedicated to helping and guiding us through these exciting times..." David Conroy, Managing Director

Since June 2015, Eat My Lunch have provided over 475,000 lunches to hungry Kiwi kids. Starting from humble beginnings in a home kitchen in Auckland, Eat My Lunch very quickly grew to delivering 1,400 lunches daily to kids attending 48 schools across Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington. Having a lot of growth and success so early in a company’s life brings with it a bunch of things that organisations may not have necessarily thought about before. This became more evident to Lisa and her team when they decided to move from the original Eat My Lunch premises (her own kitchen) into a bigger and better commercial space. The Eat My Lunch website is the engine of the business, so staying connected to the online world is crucial. The team need constant daily access as they download customer information which feeds the supply chain from courier pick-ups to administration. Given that technology drives this business, Lisa wanted to ensure that Eat My Lunch were staying ahead of the game with an innovative solution (this is where The Instillery came in). Unsure of exactly what she needed to achieve this, Lisa invited The Instillery in to take a good look at her new location and get a feel for what was needed from a technology standpoint. Judging from how quickly Eat My Lunch were growing, we made it our prerogative to ensure that future growth could be handled easily. As a result, we came up with a no-fuss solution that suited the Eat My Lunch business, decking out the new space with ultra-fast internet, ensuring that WiFi was easily, securely and reliably available. And as the Eat My Lunch team works early mornings and late nights, we hooked up IP surveillance cameras to the premises to keep the team and all their volunteers safe. “To have The Instillery come in and say hey look, we’ll just sort it all out for you guys and you don’t have to worry about it was incredible.” Lisa King – Founder, Eat My Lunch Lisa says that not having to worry about the technology side was what really did it for her; having tech experts take care of the technology that let her team take care of preparing lunches for hungry Kiwi kids was more than she could have hoped for.   More about Eat My Lunch: Eat My Lunch is the brainchild of caring Kiwis Lisa King and her partner. After many years of marketing foods to New Zealand that were on the unhealthy end of the scale, they decided it was not only time for a career change but also time to step up and make a difference. They considered it unfathomable that there were so many Kiwi kids going hungry during school and yet nobody was doing enough about it. Coming up with a great idea that actually works is one thing but getting people on board to help is another. However, Eat My Lunch have established an excellent business model that enables people to get on board simply and easily. Their Buy One, Give One philosophy is what makes Eat My Lunch so successful. You can order your own lunch easily online and by doing that, a child is also getting one. By doing something that is a natural part of your daily routine – buying lunch – but also having a real and instant impact on a child’s life, is a brilliant way to get people involved. For more info head on over to eatmylunch.nz

Woods Furniture are a nationwide school furniture supplier who needed help with their online stock management. They believe that education is of utmost importance to our children’s future and have studied how they learn from a behavioural, ergonomic and cognitive perspective to develop furniture that is flexible, adaptable and stimulating. It’s this philosophy that inspires their intelligently designed range of furniture. Furnishing schools with the highest quality products requires hosting a large and constantly changing catalogue of stock in order to offer enough of a variety of products to keep up with the demand and needs of schools. Since Woods Furniture were using an outside organisation to manage their website, they just weren’t able to maintain their online presence as they would have liked to. In order to accurately reflect their rapidly changing stock, like when new products arrived, they needed to be added, removed or edited on the website. This meant contacting the firm controlling their website, submitting a request - which took a week of their time - and also paying a fee, so money was leaving their pocket every time a change was needed. But now with Shopify, it is so easy to use that everything can be done in-house, meaning any changes and updates to the website can be carried out regularly and as soon as they’re needed, allowing Woods Furniture to stay up to date online and significantly reduce their costs. Woods Furniture can now add, remove and change products whenever they wish, while also applying the appropriate options for customers to specify exactly what it is they want, something that Shopify has made easy and effortless. It really has been a huge leap forward in how Woods Furniture are able to manage their products. Getting onto Shopify has changed Woods Furniture’s business for the better. Aside from their products, they’ve been able to add customer case studies and share research and insights. They can connect to their team member's social media feeds which has challenged everyone at Woods Furniture to get involved and has made creating content a lot more organic. Shopify has various dashboards that allow you to view and customise various data and insights on your products. Woods Furniture says that Shopify’s dashboards are great as the analytics are very useful to steer things such as keywords and product rankings. Key benefits that Woods Furniture have experienced since getting on to Shopify are: An increase in website traffic A large increase in enquiries and quote requests Reduction in the website management costs Without The Instillery, Woods Furniture say that none of this would have been possible. Woods Furniture felt stuck on what was the best next step to solve their website woes, especially since they were under the impression that changing their website would cost a bomb. But after approaching The Instillery, Woods Furniture were excited about the changes to come and felt refreshed to hear that transitioning their website was going to be very simple. The brand on the website now looks cleaner and more modern on Shopify. The layout is much better to use as customers can easily navigate to where they want to go. Woods Furniture also love that when a customer provides feedback on their site, they can immediately make any changes that may be required. What made the Shopify experience so smooth for Woods Furniture was The Instillery’s help and guidance through the setup process. Woods Furniture say that the transition to Shopify was made easy by The Instillery, as we spoke their language and really understood what Woods Furniture was trying to achieve. We provided Woods Furniture with mock ups of their Shopify store layout and carried out a demonstration of the functionality so when it came time for Woods Furniture to manage Shopify themselves, they felt comfortable they were going to get exactly what they wanted. Following the site going live, we took Woods Furniture through a training session and away they went! Richard Jenkins, New Zealand General Manager of Woods Furniture has this advice for fellow business; “If you are thinking about Shopify, just go ahead and do it! Once you are setup you are in control of your online business and The Instillery make it an easy, smooth and painless transition. So why not?”

The Honest Food Company produces socially responsible handcrafted raw protein foods that are free from grain, gluten, dairy and sugar. The paleo protein snacks have been embraced by health and wellness aficionados across the country. Business Owner Belinda Tuki’s motto is profit with a purpose. Her goal is to grow The Honest Food Company business while at the same time giving back to the community. One way in which she is doing this is through the paid internship programme in which she mentors single mothers who are returning to the workforce to grow their confidence and/or experience. You might ask why does a business like this need cloud technology? Belinda too took a bit of convincing, asking us the very same thing when we first met. Having had it on good authority that she needed to go and ‘talk to the guys at The Instillery’ to sort out her IT and communication woes she did just that. So we had an honest conversation with Belinda about her business, the challenges her staff had with the current technology in the business and what a cloud service could potentially bring to the table to enhance the in-store experience for her as the business owner, the honest crew and customers. After breaking down the stigma of ‘the cloud’ as a technical, foreign and expensive place, Belinda has implemented new technology across her business. Within a day Belinda was up and running with UFB connectivity, instore WiFi, in store surveillance for staff safety/security, Vend POS and analytics leaving Belinda to focus on what she does best – creating life changing moments for the community through her love of sustainable food. honestfood.co.nz

Ingrid Starnes is a New Zealand designed and made label, established in 2009. The clothing collections feature signature prints, silk dyed to custom colourways, and a love of fabric, drape, structure and detail.The label's fine fragrance Vetyver Bergamot is available throughout New Zealand and in the magazine Monocle’s retail stores internationally.​​ Life before the cloud was laborious for New Zealand fashion label, Ingrid Starnes. The fashion retailer’s two Auckland stores and ten stockists were managed through a system of online spreadsheets requiring never-ending manual updates. Savvy business owners, Ingrid and Simon, were well aware of global trends and innovations in the retail space and approached The Instillery to see how they too could take advantage of the cloud in their own business and leverage products such as Vend (a cloud managed Point of Sale and inventory management application) to drive visibility and efficiencies into their business. As a New Zealand designed and made label it was important for the the team to work with a local cloud service provider and team that “get’s retail.” Equally important for the Ingrid Starnes label was being able to leverage a financial consumption model that would flex with their unique businesses needs including exciting events such as the launch of a new Ponsonby Store (76 Ponsonby Road) in October, 2015. This rapidly growing fashion retailer now has an integrated service through The Instillery’s retail technology rejuvenation package which runs across all of its in store operations, from high speed internet supporting the back office to front counter in store WiFi, real time customer insights and security.