Using a private cloud to keep the coffee on at Dunkin Donuts

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2910260/using-a-private-cloud-to-keep-the-coffee-on-at-dunkin-donuts.html

This article discusses how National DCP, a major supplier of Dunkin Donuts, integrated a private cloud system after the company had underwent a large merger.  It all started in 2012, when four regional Dunkin Donuts suppliers merged to create a company called National DCP LLC.  When the company was initially created, each regional operation kept its own system running and the new corporation started its own.  Darrell Riekena, the CIO of National DCP, decided that the company needed to move to the cloud to fix this situation. National DCP wanted not just to integrate their systems but to integrate them all on a private cloud, giving them the security, reliability and scalability they needed without having to build them out and manage all of them on their own.

The Business

National DCP, based in Duluth, Ga., services more than 8,000 Dunkin Donut locations in 51 countries.  When the four businesses merged it left them without a unified IT system.  Riekena was hired in 2013 and began working with 28 members of the company’s IT team on the project, however they would come to learn that the project required a greater work force.

The Team

Riekena decided to use Verizon Communications’s private cloud and also brought in consulting giant Deloitte to serve as their integration partner.

Beginning the Integration

By the end of 2013, the team had an integration plan in place, had assessed all of their applications, and had created a business plan.   In January 2014, they began the project, working on the system configuration and plotting how the implementation of the plan (Project Fresh Start) would go.  In October  2014, National DCP launched the first of four phases of its IT merger, integrating the Southeast region’s system with the corporate system, and it was a big success.  With the success of the first region, the company plans to continue integrating the remaining regions.  The mid-Atlantic region is set to be the last region integrated and is scheduled for the first quarter of 2016.

Questions –

1.  If you were the CIO would you have chosen to move to the cloud as well or  would you taken the company in a different direction following the merger?

2.  Do you think it was necessary to bring in Deloitte as a partner or could National DPC have successfully completed the integration process on their own?  What are some of the benefits to bringing in a partner like Deloitte?

3.  In the future, do you see the cloud becoming a popular choice for other companies going through a merger?