People have been puzzling for over 100 years. During quarantine alone puzzle sales skyrocketed 300% as families sat down away from computer screens or TVs to spend quality time together.  

One of the names synonymous with the art of puzzle-making is Ravensburger. Founded in Germany in 1883, Ravensburger is a leader in puzzles, board games, activities, and toys—they even have their own adventure park! 

We sat down with Markus Moses from Ravensburger to discuss their partnership with Cisco Meraki and how our solution has helped him and his very small IT team scale operations while supporting and growing the expansion of the company as a whole.  

Could you tell us a bit about your role and your company? 

Marcus: Of course! Hello, I’m Markus Moses and I’ve worked for Ravensburger since 1994, so quite a long time. My current role is Senior Network Analyst and I’m responsible for the network at Ravensburger and its subsidiaries.  

Ravensburger is a publisher that produces puzzles, board games, and books. We also have an adventure park for children. We have about 2,000 employees and are continuing to grow internationally with locations in Europe and America.  

Wow, very cool! I’m sure you have so many great stories from your 20+ years with the company. We’d love to hear a bit more about the IT infrastructure you built over that time. 

Marcus: Yes, it’s been a long time. Lots of change and growth. We have about 55 networks spanning across Europe and the U.S. We have a mix of Cisco Catalyst switches and Cisco wireless access points that we manage through the Meraki dashboard. We also use some Meraki IoT products like Meraki MV smart cameras and MT sensors.  

Could you tell us more about how you use Cisco Catalyst switches with the Meraki dashboard? 

Marcus: Yes. Meraki is very user-friendly and I’m happy with how the Cisco Catalyst devices and the Meraki dashboard work together.  

We can add our Catalyst switches to the Meraki dashboard, which has vastly improved our visibility and troubleshooting. Having all the devices on one dashboard has been a huge win for us.  

That’s so great to hear. What was life like before Meraki?  

Marcus: It was a headache, many sleepless nights. Meraki has helped vastly by combining everything on one dashboard, which helps alleviate my workload and streamline operations.  

Device management was disconnected before, but now I have one dashboard for everything. It’s a dream.  

Let’s take a step back, why did you decide to partner with Meraki? 

Marcus: The main intention of partnering with Meraki was to alleviate our IT challenges. We are a very small team on the network side—it’s just myself and a part-time employee—so the lack of central device management was really cumbersome and was eating up a lot of time.  

We chose Meraki because it covered all of our needs—from switching to sensors. 

What have been some of the most notable results of the partnership? 

Marcus: The dashboard makes updates easier and allows them to happen quicker. I can automate updates, which saves me time, and now I have a lot more visibility into device health and troubleshooting. I was able to reduce the amount of hours I previously spent  troubleshooting because of the dashboard.  

I also save time by not having to travel to each location. Whether it’s to the park, the office, or the shops, I can manage everything on the dashboard from anywhere. For example, I can send deployment packets to each location right from the dashboard, and even though each location has different needs, we can deploy the solutions without needing to travel, which is huge.  

Even though the number of devices are growing and the network is growing, the amount of work I have hasn’t increased and I don’t need to hire anyone else. That’s a big win for us as a small team supporting such a big company.  

How would you describe your partnership with Meraki? 

Easy! It’s so easy to use! Easy to scale, simple to use. I’m very happy.  

Curious to learn more?  

Visit the Ravensburger website to learn about all the amazing board games, activities, and, of course, puzzles they have for sale. 

Also, check out our other Meraki customer success stories to discover more ways to get the most from your network.