Beck's Hybrids Case Study

Business Overview

Beck’s Hybrids is the largest family-owned, retail seed company in the United States, serving farmers in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, southern Michigan, western Kentucky, Tennessee, Iowa, southern Wisconsin and Missouri. Beck’s understands what farmers need, because they’re farmers, too.

As the largest family-owned seed company, Beck’s has access to the best genetics and trait technologies from suppliers worldwide. In fact, Beck’s strives to provide all customers with the tools they need to succeed on their farm.

Beck’s Leadership Team offers over 100 years of combined service to Beck’s customers. All team members have diligently worked in various roles within the company providing a wealth of knowledge and experience, second to none in the seed industry.

Business Challenge

During a time of rapid business growth and expansion, Beck’s Hybrids was looking for a solution that would decrease their risk, while increasing operational efficiency. With locations spread across the country, Beck’s Hybrids needed a strong network connection in the central Midwest. The objective was to find a resilient data center colocation solution that would future-proof them for continued growth to scale.

At this time Brad Fruth, Information Systems Manager at Beck’s Hybrids, said the corporation was in an environment of swift change and growth. Beck’s has multiple locations across the country and wanted to prepare for and reduce the risk of any disasters or damage to their vital data.

It was time to find a partner that could provide secure, compliant and redundant facilities, reduce operating costs, and minimize risk for Beck’s Hybrids.

Options Considered

While Beck’s Hybrids looked at two colocation providers in different geographical locations, they ultimately landed on LightEdge. For one, LightEdge’s Midwestern locations in Des Moines, IA, Kansas City, MO and Omaha, NE were exactly what Beck’s Hybrids was looking for from a disaster recovery standpoint. Because Beck’s Hybrids business has been moving west into Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota, and Minnesota, they were looking for a data center hub that was high speed, secure, redundant, and near the edge.

In addition to being in the right geographical location, it was LightEdge’s technical experts who helped push the deal across the finish line. Brad deeply appreciated the creative minds and extensive experience that LightEdge’s technical team brought to the table. Their local people and years of experience truly helped LightEdge stand out above the other competitors.

Solution

After starting out discussing disaster recovery solutions, the conversation evolved. Beck’s Hybrids ultimately decided to colocate in LightEdge’s Tier III data center and utilize Talari SD-WAN.

The initiative was designed to reduce risk and increase disaster recovery and business continuity. After talking to LightEdge, Beck’s Hybrids realized they needed a network in Iowa. The right solution for them was to colocate their data in infrastructure designed to enable operational and financial efficiency, reducing the burden on their IT staff. It also enabled them to tap into the leading security and compliance measures built into LightEdge’s facilities and processes.

Business Impact

Today, Beck’s Hybrids takes advantage of space in LightEdge’s Des Moines Data Center Campus. LightEdge’s geographically dispersed facilities gave Beck’s Hybrids the Midwest footprint they were looking for.

With LightEdge’s technical experts that bring decades of best practices to the table, LightEdge’s data center solutions have allowed Beck’s Hybrids to stay on a path of growth, expansion and continued enhancement.

Currently in optimization mode, Beck’s Hybrids looks forward to utilizing LightEdge’s facilities to maintain uptime, and to focus their internal efforts on meeting strategic business objectives instead of monitoring the blinking lights in an in-house facility.

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