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The business challenge
As one of South Africa's leading entertainment and media companies, our customer delivers live, always-on entertainment to millions of viewers, supported by a complex hybrid infrastructure environment where downtime is not an option. Behind the scenes, over 4 000 high-end hybrid infrastructure servers underpin critical ERP and financial systems, including payment processing, all of which need to run without interruption.
As the environment scaled, several operational pressures emerged. Resolution times for application and device issues were lengthening, with employees losing productive time waiting for fixes. User provisioning was slow, creating friction for new starters and teams onboarding new tools. Devices experiencing performance issues were often replaced in full rather than repaired, driving up cost unnecessarily. At the same time, software licenses were going unused across the business, representing ongoing spend without matching value. The customer needed a partner who could bring both the scale and the specialist capability to manage this complexity while actively reducing risk and cost.
The solution
Altron Digital Business (ADB) has been a trusted partner to the customer for nearly 20 years, delivering 24/7 Enterprise Business Services to ensure uninterrupted live entertainment. This includes the ongoing management of over 4 000 high-end hybrid infrastructure servers, as well as oversight of critical ERP and financial services, including payment processes.
Through targeted automation and modernisation initiatives, ADB has worked to reduce downtime, improve productivity, decrease resolution times and enhance the overall user experience. Lifecycle management services have been applied to mitigate risk and optimise infrastructure and license utilisation, driving cost efficiency across the environment. User provisioning has also been accelerated to remove friction for the business.
To go further, ADB ran an End-User Experience Management proof of concept, using Aternity to proactively identify and resolve issues before they affect the business. The approach focuses on applying break fixes and component upgrades instead of defaulting to full device replacement, and on assisting with or automating the removal of unused software licenses.
The business outcomes
The End-User Experience Management PoC proved potential savings of R17 million in a single year, driven by:
- A targeted 50% improvement in application and device health, directly improving productivity.
- A 30% reduction in Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) through Aternity, meaning employees spend less time waiting for issue resolution and more time working.
- Break fixes and component upgrades applied in place of full device replacements, reducing hardware spend.
- Assisted and automatic removal of unused software licenses, cutting unnecessary license costs.
Beyond the PoC, the broader partnership continues to strengthen the customer's operational resilience, with reduced downtime, faster resolution times, optimised infrastructure and license utilisation, and a stronger foundation for ongoing digital transformation.