Menzies Distribution uses IBM to power expansion

EDINBURGH, UK - 03 Sep 2009: IBM (IBM:NYSE) and Menzies Distribution have today announced the latest addition of IBM servers to the Menzies Distribution IT infrastructure. Menzies Distribution is concentrating on improving customer service by investing in infrastructure and new technology. Business success for Menzies depends on providing an efficient, high quality, time critical service to their customers and partners.  

Menzies Distribution has recently acquired a 20% increase in market share with their major publishers due to new contracts.  The recently expanded operation engages 4,000 employees at 37 branches across the UK with 4 new depots being added to the estate. They now have approximately 43% market share, delivering 4.8 million newspapers (5.1 million on Sundays) and 2.6 million magazines daily to approximately 26,000 retail customers nationwide. They also provide a wide range of added-value support and marketing services to retailers and publishers. 

"Our business is totally IT dependent. We are implementing SAP for Media with the Press Distribution Extension (PDEX) to make our response to information requirements faster and more flexible. This, in turn, will ensure more accurate delivery of the right quantities of magazines and newspapers to the newsagent and, ultimately, the reader. 

"Now we find ourselves with a sudden increase in market share and a consequent requirement to react even more quickly to change and establish ourselves all the more firmly as a leader in our business. To sustain this, we need total faith in our applications and their underlying infrastructure and its scalability. This means total faith in our infrastructure suppliers. We have chosen IBM because we believe they are the clear market leaders in this arena and we have confidence that they will join us successfully through this massive change." said Alan Sutherland, Technical Services Manager, Menzies Distribution Ltd.

"With these servers, IBM provides Menzies Distribution with further modernisation of its infrastructure that will meet the company's growth needs, while offering a high level of flexibility and reliability," said Will Graham, Client Manager, IBM UK. 

Menzies Distribution is currently migrating two applications from Sun Solaris to IBM AIX, a bespoke packing application and an Adobe based distributed printing application and plan to deploy the latest IBM p5 505 Express servers into 22 of their branches from September 2009. Menzies Distribution’s IBM infrastructure also includes IBM Power 570s, IBM System Storage DS4800 and a Disaster Recovery solution. 

Additional Information: 

For more information on Menzies Distribution visit:www.menziesdistribution.com

For more information on IBM visit www.ibm.com/uk

Adobe is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States, and/or other countries.

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