Six Degrees has been chosen by AvantiGas, an international supplier of liquefied petroleum gases (LPG) and part of the UGI Corporation, to build and host its data and IT services on a multi-cloud platform across 16 European countries. This hybrid methodology sits across Six Degrees’ UK data centres and European Azure data centres supported by the Microsoft platform. It will enable AvantiGas to achieve its goal of operating at the highest level of service while giving customers up-to-the-minute information on deliveries.
The multi-cloud solution Six Degrees devised consists of four main components: managed workspace, managed hosting, voice and data, and security across Six Degrees’ data centres and the Microsoft Azure platform. Within these four components, Six Degrees supplies and manages disaster recovery and backup, voice over IP, licensing, communications, migration services and interconnections between Azure and Six Degrees data centre platforms. The solution is designed to enable AvantiGas to focus more fully on its fuel distribution service rather than managing the IT.
AvantiGas initially began its journey with Six Degrees through a complex re-deployment of critical business applications across its UK Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, JD Edwards, from a private cloud. AvantiGas took the opportunity to create a shared platform with common standard policies and uniform service levels by expanding Six Degrees’ role in supporting business efficiency across a further 15 European countries.
Steve Jones, Head of IT at UGI International North, commented, “We operate in a highly competitive market and to remain on top we needed to streamline our processes in a way that would fundamentally improve our service to customers. This meant streamlining the delivery of 93 million bottles of gas across Europe while reducing operating costs. To achieve this goal it was essential to harmonise our IT solutions across the company to a common, unified platform. We had such great feedback from the UK team on the service that Six Degrees was providing that I travelled to their office to review how the solution was helping to drive growth and meet objectives in that region. From there it was clear that this was a solution that should be implemented across Europe – they were the technology partner we needed and wanted.”
Six Degrees services provide AvantiGas with multiple benefits including:
- Consolidated IT infrastructure that is high performing, consistent and reliable
- Data that is properly stored, managed and protected in Six Degrees data centres and Microsoft Azure platform
- A common platform with common technology standards and policies
- Unified service levels to customers across Europe
- A predictable pricing model
David Ricketts, Head of Customer Marketing at Six Degrees commented: “We are delighted to be working with AvantiGas on this pan-European deployment. Understanding our customers’ goals is always a top priority and with regard to this project, streamlining operations is a big step in enabling AvantiGas to achieve its goal of delivering faster, more consistent and higher quality services to its customers. We look forward to a continued working relationship with AvantiGas and building on this strong partnership”.
