Father Christmas Inc faced challenges processing the large volume of gift requests it receives each year in a manual process. It implemented an EMC private cloud solution to automate workflow, analyze data, and improve efficiency. The solution reduced costs 50% while increasing productivity and security. Mrs. Claus recommends the EMC solution for its benefits in handling their "big data" problem and ensuring operations for future Christmas seasons.

1. Father Christmas inC moves to Private
Cloud with a ComPlete emC solution
santa overcomes big data problem and yields increased
cost effectiveness, data security, and operational efficiency.
ComPany BaCkground
Originally established by founder and CEO Santa Claus in the 17th Century, Father Christmas Inc
is the largest not-for-profit organization in the world. With headquarters at the geographic North
Pole, and employing hundreds of staff (Elves) known for their cheerful hard work and pointed
ears, Father Christmas Inc makes the world merry every year by delivering gifts to billions of good
boys and girls.
Challenges due to seasonality are recurring: the Company receives up to 1.1 million communica-
tions a day (including handwritten letters, emails, FAX’s, and digital attachments) during the
months of November and December. Historically, processing gift requests - and capturing critical
essentials manufacturing and fulfilment data - was entirely manual. This time-consuming and sometimes
inaccurate process could lead to manufacturing discrepancies and high costs for the Company.
Company Father Christmas Inc, North Pole
Additionally, historical data (400 years of Santa Good & Bad Books) was archived in an isolated
Industry Non-profit igloo. Past customer, manufacturing, and fulfilment data was therefore difficult to access and
Key benefits created a huge data problem – not only how to store the Petabytes of information, but how to
• Automates 90% of all workflow processes capture, process and make sense of it.
• ROI in 24 months Father Christmas Inc turned to EMC for a globally distributed infrastructure to meet peak work-
• Lowers TCO by 50% load requirements. Through EMC, Santa and his Elfin workforce has found an innovative method
• 45% power and cooling cost savings to protect, secure, store, manage, retain, and analyze information. And all contained within a vir-
• Virtualized to maximize data storage tualized Private Cloud environment that will meet his Company’s business needs year round.
utilization
• Fully secure with comprehensive data the Challenge: handling Billions of
backup, data recovery and Cloud-enabled
solutions
CommuniCations and orders from a variety of
• Increase in efficiency, accuracy, and agility Platforms while reduCing Costs
• Compliance, minimizing risk
Mrs Claus, Father Christmas Inc VP of Finance, explains how escalating costs drove them to look
for a Private Cloud solution from EMC. “For years the Company received all Santa Claus letters
• Mrs Claus likes it. What better recom-
mendation is there?
at our sorting office in the North Pole,” she explains. “We had millions of children’s letters to
make sense of. Petabytes of content: names, addresses, toy requests. All of it was pouring into
our North Pole office and on a variety of communications platforms: emails, email attachments,
FAXs, social network messaging, and handwritten letters – we had a Big Data problem!
“Things were a mess. The poor Elves were working 24/7 trying to make sense of it all. The
overtime costs alone were killing us! What’s more, we expected communication volumes to
increase exponentially. What we required was a method to lower overall costs of transport-
ing order requests to the North Pole, a method to increase operational efficiencies, the flexi-
bility to meet new data handling demands, a lower total cost of ownership, and a
methodology that would allow us to redeploy resources to achieve these objectives.”
Customer Profile

2. the solution: flying to Private Cloud on more
than a one horse oPen sleigh
CIO and VP of Data Dispatch, Premier Elf was already familiar with EMC and its capabilities.
“Since 2008 we have used EMC products and services and were pleased with the results,”
Premier Elf explains. “I learned that EMC technology was at the forefront of Private Cloud
technologies. Their vision aligned with our own. So I told them that Father Christmas Inc was
considering setting up local hubs in capital cities worldwide to receive and process all com-
munications. We believed that by geographically dispersing our data capture and sorting
efforts, we would lower costs and increase efficiencies.”
EMC Consultants travelled to the North Pole, providing a comprehensive recommendation for
an EMC Private Cloud Solution. “When I saw the anticipated performance increase, I immedi-
ately recommended the solution to the CEO,” Elf states.
exPediting ComPrehensive delivery for Christmas
Delivery and rollout of the EMC Private Cloud solution was tightly scheduled. EMC Private
Cloud-enabled data storage infrastructure was installed at the Company’s North Pole HQ. Elf
and his team quickly established Virtual Machines for operating application requirements.
Separate VMs were created to hold critical used for manufacturing, fulfilment, and marketing
requirements. EMC also installed Business Intelligence analytics. A separate disaster recov-
ery and backup data center was created at Father Christmas Inc’s Palm Beach Florida Sum-
mer HQ. The Company now had a tiered data storage infrastructure in place to solve their
‘big data’ problem. Additionally, RSA cloud security applications provide peace of mind to Elf
and the Board of Directors day in and day out.
“ We’ve cut operating costs in half, while ensuring the future due to the scalability
of EMC Private Cloud solutions. Increased productivity, flexibility, and efficiency
have enhanced our competitive position. Our EMC solution is so effective it will
pay for itself in 24 months!”
mrs s Claus, vP finanCe, father Christmas inC
“We knew that our journey to the Private Cloud could deliver for Christmas,” Elf states. “That
said some of our Elves were a little reluctant. Moving to Private Cloud requires something of
a mindset change. They knew that data was going to be stored thousands of miles from
them. They were worried that if data was lost or misplaced, they’d have millions of disap-
pointed children. But their fears soon melted.”
the merry Benefits of emC’s Private Cloud solution
The redeployment of organizational resources made possible by EMC has significantly
changed work practices, yielding significant benefits to Father Christmas Inc. Today, chil-
dren’s communications are distributed to the appropriate global communication hub. There,
Elves scan letters and FAX’s on their multi-purpose devices. Then using EMC solutions, the
scanned communications are pushed into the Private Cloud and onward to the North Pole.
The EMC solution automatically extracts names, addresses, and toy requests from the physi-
cal letters as well as critical data from emails, attachments, and social networking communi-
cations…all of which is needed to fulfil the requests of these children. Each girl and boy is
automatically assigned a Case and a pre-determined business process workflow is triggered
to ensure he or she receives the right gift based on the request. In some cases, the Elves
need to do some additional inquiry. For that, the elves can use an application to automati-
cally despatch personalized emails to children’s parents requesting an update on their
behaviour during the past year. Emails received back are automatically matched to the rele-
vant child Case. “This capability presents us with critical information so that we can easily

3. confirm whether each individual is Naughty or Nice, increasing our accuracy ten-fold,” Elf
says. Confirmed orders are finally sent to global manufacturing and fulfilment units to sup-
port Father Christmas Inc’s ERP and JIT capabilities.
retaining information to minimize ComPany risk
EMC’s information governance and archiving solutions help Father Christmas Inc on its Cloud
journey by providing effective process and procedural compliance while minimizing corpo-
rate risk. CIO Elf explains: “EMC solutions allow us to set up rules to archive all of our bil-
lions of email and other communications for a specific time period. We now keep data for
over 90 years, in excess of standard customer order expectancy. Older data is automatically
archived to a low cost EMC data storage unit, providing cost-effective data tiering.
“Occasionally we do receive gift requests from children who have been naughty,” Elf adds.
“Our EMC solutions allow us to create a separate file of ‘higher risk’ children. Very occasion-
ally we’ll receive a complaint from a parent asking why we have isolated their child in the
Naughty File. Using EMC eDiscovery solutions, we can quickly locate all relevant data in order
to justify our decision. We do, of course, work hard to keep that file as small as possible. We
like it because it’s so cost effective and minimizes corporate risk.”
data analysis for future Plans
EMC business intelligence solutions have also helped Father Christmas Inc to plan for the
future. “What, you think we stop working between January and November? With EMC’s data
storage and analytics capabilities, our Yuletide Business Intelligence Unit is already working
overtime to plan for next year.”
Father Christmas Inc can now leverage data held on EMC infrastructure to forecast and pre-
dict expected demands for future Christmases, helping Santa to plan for Elf-force, reindeer,
and materials requirements.
reCommending the Benefits:
“we’ve CheCked it twiCe!”
Finance VP Mrs Claus is enthusiastic about the benefits that her company has received as a
result of its investment in EMC’s entire solution within the Private Cloud. “We’ve cut operat-
ing costs in half, while ensuring the future due to the scalability of EMC Private Cloud solu-
tions. Increased productivity, agility, and efficiency have enhanced our competitive position.
Our EMC solution is so effective it will pay for itself in 24 months! Of course, every cent that
we’ve invested must leverage innovative technologies to handle the volume of information
we receive today, and the increases that we expect in the near future. The complete solution
provided by EMC does just that.
ContaCt us “We’ve checked it twice, just like we do with everything around here. EMC has helped us to
To learn more about how EMC products, reap the many benefits of Private Cloud, while also allowing us to effectively and intelligently
services, and solutions help solve your process our huge volume of information at even lower costs. Ultimately, our EMC solution
business and IT challenges contact your brings us peace of mind. And for an organization designed to bring happiness to children
local representative or authorized the world over, peace of mind is most important. ”
reseller—or visit us at www.EMC.com
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