JOHNSON BROTHERS A digital transformation driving success
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JOHNSON BROTHERS Enabling organic growth through digital transformation WRIT TEN BY
CATHERINE S TURM AN PRODUCED BY
ANDY TURNER
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w w w.j o hnso nbro t hers . com
In the alcohol distribution business for over 65 years, Johnson Brothers has built a digitally enabled workforce that delivers outstanding customer service each and every time
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lcohol is big business. Amounting to more than 16% of total beverage volume across the US, total alcoholic beverage sales
in 2017 exceeded US$234.4bn, a figure which continues to rise. While beer remains a key staple 04
with 185.57mn barrels produced in the US in 2017, demand for wine and spirits is also on an upward trajectory. As US consumers continue to drive up sales across the industry, opportunities have ascended for strong, market-savvy players to take full advantage and transform their service offerings. Providing exceptional services to its customers and supplier partners since 1953, wine, spirits and beer distributor Johnson Brothers has a long-term vision to leverage their longstanding values of excellence and team work to drive innovation as it enters new markets. Proud of its strong heritage in Minnesota, the business has acquired a number of businesses, launched a new distribution center and strengthened its supplier relationships as part of its ongoing strategy to enable organic customer growth.
Our warehouse and delivery team members use technology to sort and manage product
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Empower world-class field team execution with one app. We partner with 200+ enterprise brands to drive digital transformation, improve the customer experience, and increase profitability. Hundreds of thousands of users have executed 30M field initiatives worldwide– perfecting merchandising, driving sales, and delivering efficiencies–all from their mobile device. We empower teams to take optimal action at all levels of the business in real-time.
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A Johnson Brothers truck in front of our warehouse
07 Michael Johnson, Chief Executive
of the best suppliers and customers
Officer, and Todd Johnson, Chief
in our industry. Today, technology is
Operating Officer are the Johnson
critical to our business, from providing
Brothers who run the company that
tools to our sales consultants, sharing
was founded by their father Lynn.
market trends with our customers, as
Todd describes how technology
well as improving the efficiency of our
strategy will enable growth, “My dad
distribution operations.”
started the company in 1953. He
Bringing this strategy to fruition at
bought a used truck, rented a small
Johnson Brothers is Vice President of
warehouse and opened his doors for
IT, Tim Dokken. Working for established
business. There was no technology
Fortune 500 organizations, such as
back then – everything was done by
American Express Global, Thrivent
hand. Over the next 65 years, we’ve
Financial and Merrill Corporation, with
grown across multiple states and
a career spanning accounting, finance,
developed partnerships with some
consulting and all aspects of technolw w w.j o hnso nbro t hers . com
Warehouse employee filling customer orders
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E X E C U T I V E P R OF IL E
Tim Dokken Tim is a passionate, senior technology executive with over 24 years of financial services experience, delivering solutions to businesses and consumers globally. He is currently serving as the Vice President — Information Technology at Johnson Brothers in St. Paul, MN. Previously, he was the Chief Technology Officer of LiveGiveSave, Inc., whose mission is to help people through their everyday spending to effortlessly give to causes they care about and save for their future.
“ The focus was to support the infrastructure side: our data centers, servers, all of our networking, end user computing, IT service delivery, etc. It’s really the operational side of IT” — Tim Dokken, Vice President of Information Technology 09
ogy including leading large IT moderni-
We’re moving to a brand-new data
zation programs, as well as launching
center which will go live in January
a technology start up. Dokken’s passion
with an entirely new production
to develop companies from the ground
environment. That’s literally from the
up led him to join Johnson Brothers.
ground up. Storage, compute, net-
“The focus was to support the infra-
working, plus we’ve implemented a
structure side: our data centers, servers,
new IBM Power Series for our ERP
all of our networking, end user comput-
system. We have experienced a
ing, IT service delivery, etc. It’s really the
dramatic amount of growth in the last
operational side of IT. Everything that
year and part of what we’re doing is
all the applications and data run on,
to prepare the organization for future
that’s what I own,” he says.
growth and ensure that technology
“A lot has changed in the last year.
is an enabler and not a barrier.” w w w.j o hnso nbro t hers . com
JOHNSON BROTHERS
“ Our new production environment is at least 10-20x faster to accommodate for growth and the ability to process more business” — Tim Dokken, Vice President of Information Technology 10 Moving what had previously filled
and most importantly, speed.
an entire room in its former data center
“Our new production environment is
onto two racks in its new environment,
at least 10-20x faster to accommodate
Johnson Brothers has invested in a
for growth and the ability to process
hyper-converged infrastructure, and
more business. For example, our
has embedded cutting-edge tech-
backups for our ERP system used to run
nologies, whether compute, all flash
all night long on Sunday night and take
storage, unified backup or network,
everything offline. Now we’re down to
including a full SD-WAN. The compa-
less than two hours and that’s not even
ny has developed strong relationships
on our new IBM Power 9 Server yet,”
with Dell, Nutanix, Datatrend and
adds Dokken.
others in turning its three-tier archi-
The complete modernization of its
tecture into a state of the art hyper-
technology stack remains an important
converged infrastructure, delivering
part of its strategy, leading Johnson
optimal compute and storage capacity,
Brothers to leverage the capabilities
11 of its vendors. Putting workloads into
Cloud technology has also been
Azure for sales applications and
adopted to support both local and
Amazon Web Services (AWS) for
remote workers as the business contin-
offsite storage, the business has
ues to expand, becoming one of the
sought to ensure both resiliency and
fastest and most vital investments
redundancy, as well as recoverability
across the business. Utilizing sales
through offsite data storage. Investing
tools and platforms from Inventive
in Microsoft’s entire suite of security
and Dimensional Insights has enabled
tools and capabilities, as well as
our mobile Salesforce to effectively
third party products such as Cylance
serve our customers.
has also formed part of its ‘defense
“Cloud has remained a key strategy
in depth’ strategy. All of this has
for growth, where our sales team are
worked to support Dokken and his
now entirely cloud enabled, running
team adhering to its internal slogan:
all data and applications through both
‘Always on, Always fast, Always secure.’
computers and iPads.” Promoting full w w w.j o hnso nbro t hers . com
C OMPA N Y FA C T S
• Amounting to more than 16% of total beverage volume across the US, total alcoholic beverage sales in 2017 exceeded US$234.4bn • Johnson Brothers has invested in a hyper-converged infrastructure, utilized solid state storage and has embedded cuttingedge technologies 12
• The company has developed strong relationships with Dell, Lenovo, Nutanix and others, turning its threetier architecture into a hyper-converged infrastructure • Putting workloads into Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) for offsite storage, the business has sought to ensure both resiliency and redundancy, as well as recoverability through offsite data storage
Technology improves efficiency and monitors processes in our warehouses
November 2018 charity food packing event where 70 employees packed more than 21,000 meals for local children and families accessibility for customers who wish
on what creates the most business
to speak to the sales team, anytime,
value and leaves the other things to
anywhere will allow the business to
the SaaS providers,” explains Dokken.
deliver services in a rapid fashion,
Nonetheless, the most important
removing the constraints of an onsite
investment throughout the digital
data center.
transformation of Johnson Brothers
“We’re expanding many of our
has been its team. The decision to
applications, so our core systems are
move away from legacy technologies,
cloud delivered versus having to host
overhaul the entire production environ-
those in our data center. That frees
ment, move to a new data center and
up our team to focus on the systems
rebuild the network has been met with
which really drive business value. On
excitement, and provided new opportu-
the corporate systems, it’s a way to
nities for the personal and professional
make sure that our resources can focus
growth for team members. w w w.j o hnso nbro t hers . com
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St. Paul Warehouse and Headquarters
“ My focus is to continue creating opportunities for the team. If I’m gone tomorrow, my objective as a leader is that they will be self-sufficient and will provide a seamless service the business can be proud of” — Tim Dokken, Vice President of Information Technology
“The team are the ones doing the heavy lifting; the most significant role I’ve played is to really clear the deck. I saw an opportunity and helped craft a vision, but the team is responsible for its success, looking at how to achieve this vision, the technology to use, as well as evaluating things like ‘what should our recovery strategy look like’ and ‘what data center should we run out of?’ So, they’ve been instrumental in these decisions, which has been very engaging and motivating. My team
with outside resources. At the same time, making sure our employees get to work on the high-quality work is a core strategy.” Dokken went on to say, “My focus is to continue creating opportunities for the team. If I’m gone tomorrow, my objective as a leader is that they will be self-sufficient and will provide a seamless service the business can be proud of. The team can pick up the ball, move forward, are enabled and ready, and are open to new opportunities to take the business forward.” Clearly demonstrating that technology is an enabler and not a barrier at Johnson Brothers, Dokken remains keen to promote its internal slogan is really proud of their work,” he states
‘Always on, Always fast, Always
with pride.
Secure’, which will see the business
Making a conscious decision
reach new heights in the upcoming
to partner with a consulting firm or
years and ensure its longevity and
provider has also proven advanta-
competitiveness across the industry.
geous in enabling employees to work
“As we continue to grow, we are
on systems and technologies that
thrilled that our IT infrastructure is
drive the most business value without
ready to support our business and be
burdening the team and has allowed
a key part of our company’s success,”
the company to reach some of its key
added Johnson.
goals in a shorter amount of time. “In terms of core engineers, I have a small team so we have to supplement that w w w.j o hnso nbro t hers . com
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Johnson Brothers 1999 Shepard Road, St. Paul, MN 55116 T: 651.649.5800 | www.johnsonbrothers.com