South African paper producer connects paper mills in Europe with offices in South Africa and the United States using Interoute hybrid network model

London, 1 May, 2014 – Sappi Fine Paper Europe has turned to Interoute to find a private network solution for its large production and small offices sites across the globe. The hybrid network solution from Interoute enables Sappi’s European HQ in Brussels to connect its European paper mills and offices with its sites in South Africa and the United States.

Sappi is one of the world's largest paper producers, manufacturing 6 million tonnes of paper each year which is used across the world. Its fine paper is used by a variety of industries including printing, publishing and packaging for producing high quality printed magazines, brochures for prestige brands and even packaging for the iPhone.

Interoute’s network plays an essential role in Sappi’s IT infrastructure. The company has eight paper mills running 24x7, located in Belgium, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Austria all managed through its centralised IT organisation. To support this model guaranteed uptime and reliability of the network is crucial. Interoute’s hybrid network model connects Sappi Europe’s main production sites to Interoute’s MPLS network while the local sales offices are connected through the Internet. With the move to Interoute’s network Sappi were able to take back and centrally manage some services which they had previously outsourced enabling significant cost savings, without any compromise of service quality.

Dennis de Baar, IT Director at Sappi commented, "Changing network provider can be complex, it is not something you do just like that, it's a big operation. We chose Interoute, because it is a network provider that does what it promises and is cost effective, the perfect combination for us."

Jan Louwes Executive Vice President, Enterprise Solutions at Interoute said "Working with Sappi we’ve created an innovative cost effective hybrid network solution which will help Sappi lower its costs and increase productivity and efficiency. Our connectivity services and innovative approach to communications and cloud computing for Sappi were decisive in their choice of Interoute."