Cichy-Zasada Group, a leader in the automotive dealership industry, is moving to the cloud. The digital transformation project is handled by Beyond.pl.

Cichy-Zasada Group, the largest automotive dealership company in Poland, is embarking on a digital transformation of its IT operations. The company has decided to migrate 100% of its IT resources to the cloud, maintained and provided by Beyond.pl, a leader in green and secure data center and cloud services in Poland.

The company’s technological transformation project is directly correlated to the consolidation of the market and dynamic growth experienced by the Cichy-Zasada Group and a response to the increased service levels expected by customers to ensure efficient and multi-channel service. Poland’s largest automotive dealership group, which was formed in 2020 as a result of the merger of AHC Grupa Cichy, Rowinski-Wajdemajer, and Auto Special, has decided to completely transition from an in-house model of maintaining IT infrastructure to one of cloud environments, which it will now use to maintain the group’s critical business systems: including the dealership DMS, customer service, finance, and logistics systems.

“The market in which we operate is increasingly demanding and undergoing a profound transformation. An automotive dealer today is not only responsible for car or service and parts sales but also for the provision of financial, insurance, and consulting services. Restrictive emission regulations and the green transformation of the industry, disrupted supply chains, the need to introduce new operating models based on digital solutions, and the high unpredictability in which we operate require a deeper utilization of technology and hence the role IT plays in the business needs to change radically,” says Karol Obiegly, CEO at Cichy-Zasada Group. “Therefore, following the completion of the merger, one of our top priorities was to conduct a thorough analysis of our IT needs followed by the selection of an optimal model to manage IT infrastructure requirements for the next few years. Our goal was to increase IT security, which directly impacts business continuity. Maintaining flexibility for efficient growth of the selected solution in the context of our planned further expansion of the business without having to incur a large one-time investment was also important, as was having a transparent model to manage IT costs over time,” adds Karol Obiegly.

One partner, full support

In early 2022, the Cichy-Zasada Group selected Beyond.pl, a provider of green cloud services and operator of a sustainable and one of the EU’s most secure data centers, as a partner for its cloud transformation project. During the initial stage of cooperation, Beyond.pl was responsible for the provision of consulting services in relation to the selection of the most optimal cloud architecture and providing support during the migration of company resources from an on premise environment to the newly engineered environment. Currently, Beyond.pl is responsible for the maintenance and further development of the Cichy-Zasada Group’s cloud environments in Beyond.pl’s data centers as well as the provision of  a Disaster Recovery Center service, alongside with the creation and maintenance of the Cichy-Zasada Group’s backups. Beyond.pl is the sole provider of cloud services to the Cichy-Zasada Group.

“We entered into cooperation with Beyond.pl because of the wide range and quality of services offered. With Beyond.pl as a partner, we gained access to a global IT infrastructure, renowned service providers, and qualified IT experts with diverse technological backgrounds. Reliability and constant access to data were critical aspects that we took into account designing our cloud environment. . Hence the choice of one of the most secure data centers in the European Union as the location where we deployed and continue to further build out our cloud. A significant benefit of our digital transformation is the transition to a sustainable infrastructure maintenance model. By entrusting the maintenance of corporate resources to data centers powered exclusively by green energy, we are lowering the carbon footprint generated by our IT infrastructure and adding our contribution to the automotive industry’s green transformation,” comments Krzysztof Jedraszak, Board Representative in charge of IT at Cichy-Zasada Group.

After analyzing several scenarios and cloud technologies presented by Beyond.pl, the automotive dealership leader decided to build its environment based on VMware’s virtualization technology. The customer’s critical systems run in an active-active model in cloud environments maintained in Beyond.pl’s Data Center 1 and Data Center 2, located in different locations in Poznan, connected by a private dark fiber ring.

“Companies are increasingly moving services online, and business continuity and constant access to data have become a priority for all modern enterprises. Downtime and long latency, and thus service unavailability and customer dissatisfaction, cannot be tolerated. As a partner in technology transformation projects, we minimize the risk of IT infrastructure unavailability. In the services we provide, we combine the flexibility of the cloud with the highest-security standards of a world-class data center infrastructure, which in addition happens to be highly sustainable. This is a unique combination in the Polish and Central European market, and lies at the heart of our cooperation with the Cichy-Zasada Group,” points out Wojciech Stramski, CEO of Beyond.pl.

Cichy-Zasada Group is yet another company that has chosen Beyond.pl as a partner in its cloud transformation project. Currently, Beyond.pl works with over 500 clients providing IT infrastructure support services, including colocation, public, private, multi-cloud, and hybrid solutions.

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Cichy-Zasada Capital Group: the largest automotive dealership company in Poland. The Group operates in 29 showrooms in 8 cities. Its portfolio includes renowned automotive brands such as Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Škoda, Audi, Seat, Cupra, and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, with which the company has been working for 30 years. The Cichy-Zasada Group comprises a team of specialists who know what they are doing very well.

By combining our strengths and skills, we not only benefit from the phenomenon of synergy but also create a friendly environment for building lasting business and interpersonal relationships. Our environment is vital to us. We act prudently, taking care of both co-workers and partners. That is why we set realistic goals for ourselves, considering each party’s needs. More on: https://cichy-zasada.pl/.

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• Cichy-Zasada Group, a leader in the automotive dealership industry, is moving to the cloud. The digital transformation project is handled by Beyond.pl