White Architects

Overview

White Architects, one of Scandinavia’s leading architecture firms, has an important mission: to enable sustainable life through the art of architecture. By 2030, they want all their projects to be climate-neutral through design excellence.

Founded in 1951 in Gothenburg, the firm has since expanded to 11 offices and studios across Sweden, Norway, and the UK, doubling the number of employees to 700 in just the past 15 years.

Pål Annerström, Head of Operations, has been part of leading the firm’s digital transformation to support its growth and ambitious goals.

Challenge

Big aspirations require the right foundation and framework in order to succeed. Pål realized that the initial network infrastructure fell short. Throughout the years, adding and replacing hybrid solutions from different vendors resulted in a lack of overview. In addition, this made it almost impossible to forecast costs, a very crucial part when planning for the future.

Other challenges to tackle were reducing costs and avoiding connectivity issues. Relying only on MPLS lines for WAN connectivity meant that if the network was down in the Gothenburg head office, the other offices would be in trouble too. Luckily, their trusted IT partners came to the rescue and recommended Cisco Meraki.

Solution

Pål and his team needed to prepare their network for the future by improving connectivity, reducing costs, and making expenses more predictable at the same time. After seeing how Meraki could help
them achieve this, they were fully convinced that it was the right business solution.

Three elements stand out in the new deployment:

1. Making the switch from MPLS only to SD-WAN to reduce costs and improve latency
2. Using the latest Wi-Fi 6 access points for a future-proof wireless network
3. Enabling a Meraki network across all offices and studios, managed by their IT partner

While planning for the transformation of their IT infrastructure, Pål decided to lean on managed services as much as possible. This means that IT partners deploy and manage the network, usually at a fixed cost per month. With a team of eight employees, who all need to have a good grasp of the organization, the help was more than welcome.

Better prediction of costs was high on the priority list for White Architects. Managed services play a big role, but the switch from MPLS only to SD-WAN for connectivity between offices helped decrease those costs the most. By reducing dependency on MPLS lines, the team now takes advantage of low cost WAN-links by using Meraki MX security and SD-WAN appliances on every location. As a result, Pål and the team could cut WAN costs in half.

I was fully convinced after I saw what Cisco Meraki could help us achieve.

PÅL ANNERSTRÖM

Head of Operations, White Architects

The wireless solutions in the offices needed an upgrade too, and Pål did not hesitate to prioritize longevity of the new network. He needed to make sure that it could support future evolutions in technology, so Wi-Fi 6 access points perfectly fit the bill. High-quality switching is equally important for an architecture firm, due to the fact that they work with large model files and need to rely on wired connections as often as wireless. The team recently started working on their models in the cloud, another step closer to better collaboration and achieving their goals.

Even if changing our network infrastructure was an investment, we could promise the business to cut WAN costs in half.

PÅL ANNERSTRÖM

Head of Operations, White Architects

Results

Starting their journey with Meraki has significantly optimized the IT infrastructure at White Architects. Even more important, the firm is on track to reach their goals around climate-neutral designs.

Almost every corner of the business has noticed a positive change after implementing the new network: the finance department can better predict operational costs, connectivity in and between offices has dramatically improved, and the network is much easier to manage (even more so with help from their IT partner). As a result, the IT teams don’t have to travel as often anymore, and as Pål would describe it, “In offices where we don’t have an IT person full time, our employees are obviously most productive when they are drawing houses. Since we deployed Meraki everywhere, they can just set it and forget it.”

Find out more at whitearkitekter.com