About New England Ice Cream

New England Ice Cream Corp (NEICC) has 275 full- and part-time team members who are dedicated to doing their work with focus and care. NEICC carries the very best nationally recognized and regional Ice Cream Brands and distributes all of their products to over 10,000 unique retail and food service locations.

They are passionate about the way they handle and transport their products, and they take pride in knowing that what they deliver brings joy to so many people. Whatever their customers’ needs may be, they are dedicated to providing the right solution and ensuring maximum profitability by providing more service per serving.

WHY DATASMITH?

More often than not, moving an office involves a lot more than packing up a few boxes – especially when the business depends on a smooth transition with all of its technology. When New England Ice Cream, Corp. (NEICC) was preparing to move from Taunton, MA into their new home in Norton, MA, IT Manager Erick Aubin knew that their current Managed Services Provider (MSP) wasn’t going to cut it.

“They didn’t move fast enough,” Erick noted. They needed a company they could rely on, and the existing relationship hadn’t shown NEICC that they were a priority. After putting some feelers out for a company that could help initially with this move, Erick was impressed with what he experienced with Datasmith.

“Their responsiveness and willingness to cater to our needs at that time – which we weren’t getting from our MSP – was exactly what we needed.” Shortly thereafter, the need for a new firewall and switch provided the perfect opportunity for Datasmith and NEICC to start working together.

“I’m sure most MSP’s sell themselves as always there, always available. Datasmith has actually delivered on that promise. They are there for us, we’re confident in their abilities.” – Erick Aubin, NEICC

 THE RELATIONSHIP

NEICC is a small format distributor of Unilever ice cream products in New England, including brands like Ben and Jerry’s, Magnum, and Good Humor to name a few. They work with convenience stores, restaurants, scoop shops, and other places that carry these Unilever products for sale.

“Our goal is to deliver as much ice cream as possible with as small a margin on the product. It’s all about efficiency. How fast we can get those sales and orders into a system and delivered.” Erick points out that downtime of any kind is not acceptable. “We’re a round-the-clock operation. We have 200 employees here, the majority of whom are in delivery and sales. In addition to the 60-70 employees we have on site , there is a lot of mobile connectivity. Overnight orders are being prepared and loaded on trucks. Sales people are on the road all day long.” Fully functional technology systems are important.

TRUST

The relationship between NEICC and Datasmith is closing in on its two year anniversary. According to Aubin, Datasmith has gained NEICC’s trust through a number of small projects, including that firewall and switch installation, a server configuration, and a full hardware and software assessment. “They communicate well,” Erick says of Paul and the Datasmith team. “They have come through in a really big way in terms of collaborating and being a part of the process. They lend credibility to the priorities of our small team. They are a tremendous resource in completing the projects [we work on], and have been a great aid in initiating them as well.”

But it’s not just excellent communication that makes Datasmith a strong partner. During a significant winter wind storm that took out the power lines that directly served NEICC, Datasmith immediately helped pinpoint challenges with disaster recovery & business continuity. “They were super quick with putting a proposed solution in place to get us back up and running, and keep us running on all cylinders.”

Datasmith has a Network Engineer that works onsite at NEICC and Aubin talks about how this shows the amount of effort they have put in to get intimately familiar with the business and how NEICC operates. “They’re taking initiative to get to know our technology and [work with us to determine] how the systems can be improved.”

“Our value comes in service and responding quickly. Datasmith has similar values, and that’s a big benefit. They are there for us, we’re confident in their abilities. ”

SUCCESS

With a solid foundation in the new location, NEICC has been able to orchestrate a major infrastructure refresh thanks to Datasmith. “This is our first significant infrastructure project, and we’ve been working on it for 2 years. Datasmith has been able to come in, put together a plan, present it to the owner and parties that are not necessarily technical, and that’s been great,” Erick shared. “They’ve gained our trust enough that we’re investing $100K or so for them to do this infrastructure refresh.”

When asked how this particular infrastructure refresh will help NEICC grow, Erick responded, “This project will give NEICC the capabilities to streamline and make things more manageable. Overall, when it’s all said and done, we’ll be saving labor and costs for NEICC.”