Case Study: Industrial Distribution Sector
When Your Network Becomes Your Biggest Liability
The reality for many multi-site businesses across Australia is stark: your technology infrastructure .The very backbone that keeps your operations running can quietly become your biggest operational threat. This is exactly what one of our clients in the industrial distribution sector discovered before they reached out to Paragon IT.
The Situation
Imagine running a business with six offices spread across the country, all dependent on a central hub to function. Every order, every transaction, every piece of data flowing between your branches passes through one critical point. Now imagine that point failing and watching your entire operation grind to a halt.
That was the daily reality for this industrial distributor.
For years, they had relied on a large Australian telecommunications provider for their data and voice services, connected across all six sites including their head office via an MPLS network. On paper, it seemed like a solid setup. In practice, it was anything but. The cracks started showing in three key areas:
Saturated Links, Sluggish Performance Their data links were running at full capacity. With every site competing for the same limited bandwidth, performance across the board was degraded from basic file transfers to business-critical applications. There was no room to breathe, and no easy fix in sight.
A Single Point of Failure That Threatened Everyone The most alarming flaw wasn't just performance — it was architecture. The entire network was designed with the head office at its core. When the head office internet connection dropped (and it did), every branch office lost connectivity simultaneously. Cloud services went offline. Operations stalled. Staff were left waiting with nothing they could do.
For a business operating across multiple sites with time-sensitive distribution needs, this wasn't just an inconvenience it was a serious commercial risk.
An ERP System That Had Become a Daily Frustration Their vendor-hosted ERP system — the engine behind their inventory management, sales, and logistics — was running painfully slowly. Every time staff tried to process an order or pull up a report, they were met with delays. The root cause wasn't the software. It was the network choking beneath it.
The business was haemorrhaging productivity, and the cost of doing nothing was growing every day.
The Turning Point
The company came to Paragon IT through a referral — and from the first conversation, it was clear this wasn't a simple fix. It required a proper network strategy, not just a band-aid.
We engaged our consultancy services to take a deep dive into their environment, understand their business requirements, and find a solution that would address not just the symptoms, but the underlying architecture problems.
Rather than simply patching their existing setup, we acted as their advocate in the market — approaching and negotiating with multiple telecommunications carriers on their behalf to find the right fit.
The Solution
Working as a true technology partner, Paragon IT designed and delivered a multi-phase transformation:
Phase 1 — New Network Infrastructure We sourced a larger, multi-carrier telecommunications provider capable of delivering the reliability and speed the business needed. The results were dramatic. Some links came in at up to 200 times faster than what they previously had. Every single site — including branches that had never had backup connectivity received a dedicated failover link, ensuring that no single outage could cripple the business again.
Phase 2 — Eliminating the Single Point of Failure With the new network in place, we tackled the architectural flaw at the heart of their setup. We co-located their server infrastructure to a professional data centre, decoupling it from the head office entirely. This meant every branch could now operate independently — no longer at the mercy of a single internet connection in one building.
Phase 3 — Ongoing Managed Services Once the infrastructure was stabilised and modernised, Paragon IT took over the ongoing management of their server and desktop environment under a fixed monthly agreement — giving the business predictable IT costs and the confidence that expert support is always just a phone call or email away.
The Outcome
The transformation was felt immediately across the business.
Network performance issues became a thing of the past. Staff stopped experiencing the daily frustration of slow connections and unexpected outages. The ERP system — once a source of constant complaints — now ran reliably and responsively. Productivity returned, and with it, staff morale.
What made this outcome particularly satisfying was the commercial result: their monthly infrastructure spend actually decreased — even as they gained vastly superior bandwidth, full redundancy, and a far more resilient architecture. Better technology, at a lower cost.
Today, this industrial distributor operates with the confidence that their infrastructure can scale with their business, not hold it back. They have a technology partner they can trust, and the peace of mind that comes with knowing their network won't let them down.
They haven't looked back.
Could Your Business Relate to Any of This?
If your business is running across multiple sites, relying on an ageing network, or frustrated by slow cloud or ERP performance — you're not alone. These are some of the most common challenges we see in Australian businesses today.