Two years ago, 50-year-old confectionary manufacturer Warrell Creations was in a legacy mess. Outdated equipment and cobbled-together processes had created an information technology nightmare, with employees unable to complete even the simplest tasks.

“When I first got here our users were complaining about not being able to print a Word document. I mean, not being able to print a document? That’s fundamental stuff,” said Clifton Dorsey (pictured), vice president of The Warrell Corp.

Dorsey spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, for a digital CUBE Conversation about how Dell Technology Inc.’s integrative approach to data protection helped Warrell leave behind the dark ages of tech and take a data-driven approach to candy manufacturing. (* Disclosure below.)

Paving the way to technological confidence

Accurate data is critical for smooth operations at Warrell. Without clear lines of communication, purchasing, shipping, and the manufacturing floor are liable to be out of sync. And delays caused by shipment schedule errors or pipeline shutdowns roll all the way up to the customer.

“We’re making their product. If they can’t have the product on the shelves, that impacts them,” Dorsey explained. “So we really have to do everything that we can to make sure our systems are up, make sure everything is running, and really fulfill their order and get it out there.”

With no disaster recovery plan and systems that needed replacing from the appliance level on up, Warrell’s information technology team went in search of a complete solution.

“We had to do a full forklift of our infrastructure in our data center. [To do that,] you want to look at the integrated systems and how you get that best performance and the best bang for the buck when it comes to the budget,” Dorsey stated.

Dell EMC’s integrated data protection appliance with VxRail and cloud disaster recovery to offload backup to the cloud “was a perfect package,” according to Dorsey, who notes that “the innovation that Dell brings to the table falls in line with the innovation that we bring for candy.”

Efficiency, costs and user confidence have all improved since Warrell implemented Dell’s solution, according to Dorsey. And the company culture has “changed through and through.”

“Getting that reliance from the user and from the keyboard the whole way back to the edge was a huge win for us,” he said. “The confidence level around the organization has just really improved. We now have a lot more time to work on tomorrow than living in the trenches of today.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Dell Technologies Inc. sponsored this CUBE Conversation. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE