Ingles Markets Modernizes Operations and Begins Curbside Pick-up Service for its Customers with Aruba
January 19 2021 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
Leading Grocer Advances its Network Adding
In-Store IoT Support to Meet New Customer Needs During COVID-19
Pandemic
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), today
announced that Ingles Market, a leading grocer with nearly 200
stores across six Southeastern states, has embarked on a major
network upgrade that will modernize its operations and, in some
locations, enable new services like contactless ordering and
curbside pick-up that have become critical for customers during the
COVID-19 global pandemic.
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Ingles Market, a leading grocer with
operations in six southeastern states, is modernizing its network
operations with Aruba technology. Photo: Ingles Market
Ingles began an upgrade and replacement of its Cisco
infrastructure two years ago, swapping out Cisco access points
(APs) with Aruba’s in its stores. As store connectivity needs
quickly progressed with more devices connecting, and new uses cases
emerging, Ingles recognized that upgrading the full Aruba wireless
infrastructure, as well as increasing the density, would help the
grocer modernize and future-proof its network design. Because
Aruba’s new generation of Wi-Fi 6 APs interoperate with the older
models Ingles had deployed, upgrading the network became much
simpler and more cost-effective than it would have been with other
vendors that often require a “rip and replace” to upgrade.
“We initially built our network to support limited wireless
devices and didn’t anticipate some of the changes that our business
would encounter,” said Marty Riedling, director of Systems
Engineering for Ingles Markets. “With an increase in wireless IoT
devices being used throughout our stores for inventory ordering and
management, meat, deli and produce scales, and digital signage, it
became clear that we had to build a more forward-looking
foundation.”
In addition to the increased demand inside its stores, Ingles
also faced the challenge many retail and grocery stores encountered
after the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020: ensuring that the
network could support contactless ordering and curbside pick-up for
customers who wanted to avoid shopping inside stores. According to
Gartner1, by 2024, 80% of ordering and replenishment will be
touchless for most organizations, so retail and grocery stores like
Ingles are wise to begin enabling these capabilities now, if they
haven’t already.
To meet these new requirements, Ingles began a network upgrade,
installing additional Aruba Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 APs, access
switches, and ClearPass Policy Manager for secure authentication of
devices onto the wireless network. To date, Ingles has updated 10
of its 200 stores, keeping inventory systems online, enabling quick
price updates for the stores’ meat, deli and produce scales, and
ensuring that any additional IoT devices can be accommodated on the
network without any sacrifice in performance.
“Modernizing our network is crucial to addressing the in-store
deluge of devices, and applications necessary for our day-to-day
operations,” Riedling said.
The network overhaul has also allowed Ingles to address curbside
pick-up in an efficient and cost-effective way. To facilitate its
“click and collect” fulfillment process, Ingles’ handheld devices
such as the Zebra scanners they use for ordering and fulfillment
must have reliable and continuous connectivity to keep curbside
service running. With the additional performance and coverage
afforded by its upgraded Aruba network – coupled with the fact that
Aruba and Zebra are strategic partners so their solutions work
seamlessly together – Ingles is now providing curbside service in
four of its stores and expects to bring more stores online rapidly,
given the strong demand.
Said Riedling, “It’s clear that our stores need to continue
evolving to meet the changing needs of our customers. With our
upgraded Aruba network in place, we feel confident that we can
address these future needs and tackle the challenges that come our
way.”
1 Gartner, “10 Things COVID-19 Will Change in Digital Commerce”,
August 28, 2020
About Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is the global
leader in secure, intelligent edge-to-cloud networking solutions
that use AI to automate the network, while harnessing data to drive
powerful business outcomes. With Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform)
and as-a-service options, Aruba takes a cloud-native approach to
helping customers meet their connectivity, security, and financial
requirements across campus, branch, data center, and remote worker
environments, covering all aspects of wired, wireless LAN, and wide
area networking (WAN).
To learn more, visit Aruba at www.arubanetworks.com. For
real-time news updates, follow Aruba on Twitter and Facebook, and
for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba
products, visit the Airheads Community at
community.arubanetworks.com.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210119005055/en/
Media Contacts: Kathleen Keith Aruba, a Hewlett Packard
Enterprise company +1-707-529-4507 kathleen.keith@hpe.com
Jennifer Miu Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company +1
650-236-9532 jennifer.miu@hpe.com
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