For Rinchem, Infrastructure is the Foundation That Keeps the Business Steady

"I would recommend C1 because of the people and the focus on strategy. At the end of the day, we can buy technology anywhere. We can't buy a partnership. That’s something that is cultured and developed, and C1 has done a tremendous job of that and investing in us.” 

Vickie Urias | Director of IT Operations, Rinchem 

The Challenge:

The Right Tools to Meet Security Challenges and a Robust Data Framework 

“On the day I started with Rinchem, we had a 53-hour global outage,” recalls Vickie Urias, Director of IT Operations for Rinchem. “Our first challenge was to redesign our network from the antiquated hub-and-spoke model to SD-WAN and add a security layer.”  

In terms of cybersecurity, Rinchem needed a way to remain ahead of challenges and risks on the horizon and acquire the right tools to meet and contain them. 

In addition, Rinchem needed to improve what Urias calls the “internal customer experience,” a process that helps employees do their jobs better and more efficiently so they can pass those improvements on to external customers. This goal required better data. 

“The employee experience is also the customer experience, right?” asked Urias. “We are trying to marry the two and make sure that everybody in the organization is getting what they need from the environment, including automation tools.” 

Finally, as a shipping, logistics and warehousing company, Rinchem is aware of what the future holds in terms of artificial intelligence. While many companies are adopting AI to eliminate some manual rote and back-office work, Rinchem ultimately has plans to implement robotics, which will require a better way to manage data and a robust framework to support it.  

“Artificial intelligence will ultimately replace the need to manually create reports, but it will also get us into the robotic space,” noted Urias. “What does the next generation of warehousing look like for us? Robotics is a big part of that vision.” 

The Solution:

A Technological Shift from Reactive to Proactive 

Following a philosophy that infrastructure is the foundation that keeps the business steady, Rinchem tapped C1 to create a strategic and creative platform that would allow the company to grow and accelerate. The framework is comprised of C1 Cloud Experience (C1CX), C1MX (a Cisco SD-WAN managed service), firewalls and a disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) solution.  

“C1 has helped us implement a lot of security suites,” said Urias. “We implemented Arctic Wolf with C1, and we implemented Rubrik to support backup and recovery for our cloud environments. We've done a little bit of everything with C1 physical security as well.” 

Rinchem credits C1’s assessments for helping it achieve technological balance, including a WAVES (Workshop, Assessment, Validation, Enterprise Architecture and Solutions-as-a-Service) assessment as well as a security assessment.   

“C1's approach to helping us manage the infrastructure and networking environment is helping me,” said Urias. “C1 is a strategic partner for us, not just a vendor. We do not have the time or the resources to put a lot of calories or capital into investing in more people in-house, so C1 takes many things off my plate, allowing me to focus on business strategy.” 

C1 has guided Rinchem through understanding the evolving risks and threats regarding cybersecurity and onboarding the best tools to combat them. 

The Result:

A Base Environment That Is Secure, Reliable and Cost-Effective    

With the help of C1, Rinchem has positioned itself to be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to technology, and the company is doing a better job at responding to incoming queries from both inside and outside of the company. 

“We're no longer firefighters,” said Urias. “We respond, we don’t react, and we can respond to everything. That’s been a huge change for us. When it comes to our base environment, our motto is ‘secure, reliable and cost effective.’” 

C1 has already helped the company prevent a cybersecurity event when the company experienced an attack in South Korea. Urias noted without a proof of concept in place at the time, the situation could have posed significant challenges for Rinchem.  

In addition, the implementation of Arctic Wolf monitoring by C1 enabled Rinchem to add an additional security layer, eliminating the need for the company to maintain a large security team. C1 monitors potential security threats, and Arctic Wolf provides monitoring across the globe and around the clock.  

Rinchem has also experienced a number of productivity gains with the help of C1 managed services. With the management of voice systems and networks off their hands, Rinchem employees can work on growing the business.  

“I would recommend C1 because of the people and the focus on strategy,” she said. “At the end of the day, we can buy technology anywhere. We can't buy a partnership. That’s something that is cultured and developed, and C1 has done a tremendous job of that and investing in us.”