Verizon Business today is trumpeting its successful courting of McCoy’s Building Supply, a Texas-based retailer and former AT&T customer which operates 85 retail centers in five Southern states. Key to the package of IP networking services is a satellite-based service which will enable McCoy to distribute its employee training and also serve as a backup to landline offerings in the event of weather-related disasters.

Verizon will provide its MPLS-based Private IP with Enhanced Traffic Management (ETM) capabilities to enable McCoy’s to prioritize network traffic over multiple classes of service as well as a backup Private IP network using its Business’ Private IP Satellite Services into McCoy’s disaster recovery plan.

McCoy’s relies heavily on its networks to enable real-time tracking of all inventory and store sales information at its San Marcos, Texas, headquarters, said Dennis Strong, chief information officer. The company maintains real-time product inventories, which enables employees at both the headquarters location and at individual stores to always be working off the same inventory database, he said. McCoy’s is thus better able to keep stores stocked appropriately, to track gross margins, identify sales trends and keep inventory at the appropriate level.

“We are in a real-time point-of-sale environment,” he said. “Every time [an employee] hits the key, it is coming back to San Marcos. If our frame relay network goes down, today we jump onto ISDN and then on dial back-up. Now we will use satellite as truly an alternate route back here. So when the backhoe really goes deep – we have a true alternate route back up. During hurricane seasons, it will also help. It would nice to have had it last year. Communications would have been re-established much quicker with satellite than landline.”

Strong said McCoy’s was able to cost-justify the satellite backup system based on its primary use, which will be to distribute employee training materials to individual stores rather than to have employees travel to a centralized location for training.

“It’s a dramatically more effective way to train our employees – the disruption in the stores is much less and travel costs are lower,” he said. In addition, employee training can take place when it is appropriate for individual stores and employees, without taking people away from the workplace unnecessarily.

McCoy’s wasn’t unhappy with AT&T when its three-year contract came up for renewal but was lured to Verizon initially by some very aggressive pricing, Strong said.

“That got our attention – it was way too dramatic to ignore,” he said. “We took a look at their technology – they had a more robust and seamless implementation of satellite while AT&T third-parties that. Billing was another component – it was superior on Verizon side, more granular and easy to use. We also got what we consider much more professional account management.”

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