Magnum Semiconductor is a leading provider of chips, software, and platforms for consumer entertainment and broadcast systems located in Milpitas, CA. The company's Director of IT, John Wunder, was facing challenges making IT purchases for their offices in multiple countries due to differing purchase processes and long delays. Wunder contacted TIG's San Francisco office to help address these issues. By leveraging TIG's centralized purchasing model, Wunder can now make all IT purchases locally and have products delivered directly to overseas offices quickly. This has helped Magnum significantly reduce costs and better support their global operations.

1. TIG Customer: Magnum Semiconductor
Location: Milpitas, CA
TIG Solution: International IT Solutions—China
Magnum Semiconductor (www.magnumsemi.com) is a leading provider of chips, software, and
platforms for consumer entertainment systems and the professional broadcast infrastructure.
Magnum provides the tools and technologies for creating, delivering and enjoying video
throughout the broadcast infrastructure, around the home, and on-the-go. Magnums chips
and software are used in professional video encoders, broadcast transcoders, in-home set-top
boxes, consumer DVD recorders, hard-disk based home media centers, digital camcorders, and
a variety of in-home and portable media-centered devices.
John Wunder is the Director of IT for Magnum Semiconductor – the highest-level IT executive at
the company, reporting directly to the CFO. He manages all technical and IT operations including
technical workflow, engineering processes, business integration, and additionally headed up build
and release for a period of time. He has even helped build some of the demo devices that the
company sells.“I wear a lot of hats, and I often see my role as operational as well as technical”said
Wunder. “I’m glad that I do, and that is one of the reasons
I like working for this company. Just doing one thing –
being the guy in charge of fixing the computers – would
“The time and money this
be boring after having a job like this.” is saving us is incredible.
I have actually been able to
With five locations in six countries Wunder faced many adjust to a staff reduction
operational challenges as the IT Director. He has
because of all the time we
engineering locations in Shanghai, Beijing, Waterloo and
Milpitas, and also has offices in Seoul and Tokyo. He was are saving by doing all our
working with the manufacturer directly to purchase purchases with TIG.”
computer products and they had separate entities in each
country. Because the overseas entity of the manufacturer was working with the overseas entity
of Magnum Semi, he wasn’t able to leverage the purchases he made in any other location as part
of the deal. “Each time I had to purchase product in a different location it was like I was starting
over.” This caused operational problems, expenses and delays for his overseas IT purchases.
“About half of what we do as an IT department is in response to an immediate need”said Wunder.
“For instance, I have over 100 in our Beijing office. If one of them had an immediate IT need we
had to wire money to make the purchase to our China location, and then once they had the
funds the purchase would be made by our office over there. Because of this, it could sometimes
take as long as 45 days to respond to an IT need in that location. I also had to rely on people in
that location to make the correct purchase. In addition to the delay - the control, checks, and
balances I needed were not there. To top it off I could not completely control my own budget.”
To help address these issues, Wunder contacted TIG’s San Francisco Bay Area Branch. By
leveraging TIG’s centralized purchasing model for international companies, Wunder is now able
to make all IT purchases from his local office in Milpitas and have the IT products delivered
directly to his overseas locations without any of the operational issues or delay he was
experiencing before. TIG provides a bilingual staff so that Wunder can easily communicate and
place orders in the US. Wunder trusts TIG as a partner who can execute a high quality service
level agreement (SLA) based on US standards and TIG can not only help with the purchasing but
also with the equipment setup and maintenance. Also, since TIG has offices in both the US and
China, John can leverage the relationship during his company’s normal working hours in any
time zone, providing more appropriate around the clock support.

2. “We recently ordered a server and it was installed in our office in Beijing in less than 15 days,” said
Wunder. “The time and money this is saving us is incredible. I have actually been able to adjust to
a staff reduction because of all the time we are saving by doing all our purchases with TIG.” Wunder
now has control over his budget, he can plan more efficiently, and he is fast to fill immediate IT
needs in any location. Because immediate IT needs of engineers overseas are filled quickly,
Magnum products are able to get to production more quickly.“Not every savings to the company
is quantifiable,” said Wunder. “But I can tell you that today I can prove that we have saved over six
figures by working with TIG.”
In addition to centralized purchasing for global offices, working with TIG brought other benefits to
Magnum Semi. Magnum was a spinoff of Cirrus Logic, and then also purchased a division of LSI Logic,
and the companies were merged. What Wunder’s IT department was left with was all legacy
equipment. Wunder realized that it couldn’t be fixed with band-aids; he knew they needed a
complete remodel. However, since Magnum is a relatively small company they couldn’t do a big
purchase of all new equipment, but rather needed to put together a strategy of how to do it over time.
“TIG gets it,” said Wunder. “They understand the value of long-term planning and long-term
purchasing. We were able to work with TIG to leverage the value of our purchasing over time.”
To develop a strategy, Wunder engaged TIG to do an analysis of the Magnum data center. TIG
conducted tests and worked with Magnum to analyze the tests and to make recommendations
for the IT strategy going forward in the different locations. By doing this, Wunder was able to
tell where to target immediate upgrades, and he also had the data he needed to sell the
upgrades internally. As a result of this, Magnum has a roadmap for not only immediate
upgrades, but what will be needed to implement solutions such as virtualization in certain
locations in the future. “From the results of the analysis I knew not only which systems should
be replaced to see the most immediate results, but what the configurations of those systems
should be to make sure that they are ready for our future implementation of virtualization in
that location,” said Wunder.
Magnum is now looking at a managed print services program to optimize the company’s spend
on printing, and is also looking to leverage TIG’s available IT support services for their Shanghai
office. TIG’s service provides for on-call local IT support in China. “If this is implemented, I won’t
have to have a full-time IT support person in that location,” said Wunder. “TIG is my VAR in China,
no ifs, ands or buts. By leveraging the centralized purchasing model TIG offers, and by working
with us on planning for long-term IT strategy, TIG has provided huge value, service and savings
of both time and money for Magnum. TIG is the only IT vendor I plan to work with in the future.”
About TIG:
A premier IT systems integrator, TIG has over 28 years of experience providing customers with
best-in-class technology solutions. Offering a consultative approach to fulfilling clients' unique
computing needs, TIG is committed to providing the highest level of service, value, and advanced
technology. An award-winning Certified Minority Enterprise, certified Small Business, and
Corporate Plus® member of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), TIG
is a leading diversity supplier. Financially stable, TIG has remained profitable every year since
the company's founding in 1981. In addition to the company's headquarters in San Diego, TIG
has offices located in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Boise, Boulder, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu,
Indianapolis, Irvine, Las Vegas, Los Alamitos, Philadelphia, Torrance, Richmond, Sacramento, San
Antonio, San Francisco Bay area, Seattle, Tampa, Heidelberg, Germany, and Shanghai, China.