How New Era Helped Agnew Wines Overcome Difficulties Working In Remote Location
Challenges
- Rapid business growth created pressure to support multiple brands and locations effectively
- Operating in a remote location made reliable connectivity and day-to-day collaboration more difficult
- Expanding operations increased the need for more consistent systems and support
Solutions
- Introduced technology and support designed to improve connectivity across the business
- Helped create a more reliable foundation for communication and operational continuity
- Simplified the environment to better support growth across sites and brands
Results
- Improved day-to-day operations across a growing and geographically dispersed business
- Stronger connectivity and communication between locations
- A more stable platform to support continued growth and business expansion
How Agnew Wines Improved IT in a Remote Setting
The Agnew family entered the Australian wine industry in 2004 with the acquisition of the historic Audrey Wilkinson Vineyard in the Hunter Valley. After extraordinary growth over the subsequent seven years, in 2011 the family acquired the neighbouring Cockfighter’s Ghost and Poole’s Rock brands.
Today, Agnew Wines Group produces over 700,000 bottles of award-winning wine per annum across the three labels, in our state of the art 3000 tonne capacity winery.
Working in a remote location can come with challenges. Originally with no access to the National Broadband Network (NBN), Agnew Wines needed a way to be connected to fast and reliable internet. New Era came on board to help Agnew Wines with their IT needs and help them find a solution to their internet issue.
Agnew Wines selected New Era Technology because of the local offices and ability to provide support promptly.
Overcoming Technology Barriers in a Remote Location
Agnew Wines are located in a rural area, which means no access to the NBN and at the time there was no timeline on when it was to be implemented.
Agnew Wines originally had a server on site but it was getting old and expensive to maintain.
Whenever the server was down, sales would suffer. Naturally this was not good for business and so New Era was brought on to help Agnew Wines across their IT.
Delivering a More Connected and Resilient Environment
New Era converted all of Agnew Wines’ systems to the cloud, which meant that their aging server no longer interrupted the business’s day-to-day operations. When assessing Agnew Wines’ situation, the team also advised a fixed wireless solution for their connectivity issues. Fixed wireless networking refers to operating wireless devices in fixed locations like the vineyard. The networking usually derives its electrical power from utility mains, unlike mobile wireless devices, which tend to be battery-powered.
The Impact on Operations, Reliability, and Growth
The fixed wireless solution has solved Agnew Wines' server problem. New Era transformed their system to the cloud so now everyone is connected and can work together. The cloud transformation has also allowed the staff to be a lot more interactive with customers. Agnew Wines can host tastings outside and make sales directly from the customers with their iPads.
Frequently Asked Questions
New Era Technology provided a solution that improved connectivity, strengthened operational support, and helped Agnew Wines maintain more consistent business performance despite the constraints of a remote environment.
Let’s Build What’s Next—Together
Today’s challenges don’t sit in one category. Neither should your solutions. When infrastructure, digital transformation, and security work together, complexity fades and progress accelerates.