Nexeo Plastics is a globally recognized distributor of high-quality thermoplastic resins, servicing a diverse customer base across North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.
Operating from 24 manufacturing sites, the company offers value-added services across various industries, including healthcare, packaging, automotive, wire and cable and 3D printing, among others.
The Challenge
Nexeo Plastics
- Established Industry Expertise: Founded as General Polymers in 1973 and rebranded as Nexeo Plastics in 2019.
- Global Reach: Operates 24 manufacturing sites and serves customers in over 60 countries.
- Extensive Product Portfolio: Distributes 8,500+ thermoplastic resins and compounds, with a growing line of 3D printing materials.
- Diverse Market Coverage: Supports industries including automotive, electric vehicles, compounding, healthcare, packaging, wire & cable, and 3D printing.
The Solution
Calian worked with the company’s IT leaders to define primary objectives and their strategic technology vision, including the delivery of enhanced
security solutions and professional and managed services. As a newly spun out business, Nexeo Plastics had the unique opportunity to begin the design
process with a clean slate, enabling the company to build a long-term solution that would provide the performance, flexibility, agility and security it
needed.
Calian acted as a strategic advisor, presenting several options, including technology roadmaps for both a traditional colocation datacentre and all cloud infrastructure. As a result of the evaluation process, Calian executed an all-cloud deployment on an accelerated timeline, leveraging leading cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Palo Alto’s Prisma, and Cisco’s SD-WAN powered by Meraki. Calian became Nexeo’s technology partner to fully implement, secure and manage the new IT infrastructure.
Connectivity planning for Nexeo’s 24 sites worldwide, including eight manufacturing facilities in North America, took place simultaneously. Cisco’s SD-WAN option was deemed the right fit for Nexeo’s international needs, providing optimal connectivity capabilities at lower overall costs, integrating effectively with cloud services and infrastructure, and offering natively integrated advanced security measures.
The Calian managed services team streamlined end-user migration efforts, enabling swift application availability without compromising security or user experience. Calian also designed and delivered a single sign-on (SSO) capability for Nexeo Plastics users, based on the Okta SSO solution. This supported the company’s access and connectivity needs, from Teams and SharePoint to Exchange and Outlook. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s challenges, Calian enabled Nexeo Plastics to manage remote working efficiently. The project required 24x7x365 dedicated attention, and the experienced and committed Calian engineers undertook an immense workload on a compressed timeline.
We knew we needed a partner that would be with us from start to finish. That could not only serve as a trusted strategic advisor in deciding on the best IT solutions for our unique needs, but could help us implement those strategies and then manage the residual components once we were up and running – Ricardo Castro, CIO Nexeo
The Results
Nexeo Plastics now operates with the benefit of a high performing, reliable, and secure infrastructure strategy. The company’s adoption of professional and managed services from Calian has also enabled its lean IT team to focus on wider strategic objectives. Nexeo continues to see cost-and-resources savings as a result of the Calian ongoing SOCaaS and managed services.
