Tech Journal Building a Powerhouse: Cornerstone Building Brands Transforms IT and Finds Its Edge

Setting its sights on marketing transformation, this leading exterior building products manufacturer locked down a winning IT operations strategy — from cloud-native apps to infrastructure optimization — that will scale well into the future.

The vision: Digital transformation with a force multiplier partner

As the largest manufacturer of exterior building products in North America, Cornerstone Building Brands operates in more than 100 locations nationwide — all anchored by a vast IT ecosystem supporting more than 20,000 team members. Supported by a strong commitment to operational excellence, technology quickly became a focal point to drive meaningful change. Insight was a long-standing partner that would work alongside the company to build and execute a plan.

A relentless focus on growth

Cornerstone Building Brands wanted to improve technology operations after growing through strategic acquisitions. This level of growth meant more layers were added to the IT ecosystem: many data centers operating across more than 50 sites, numerous network architectures and multiple cloud environments. The company saw an opportunity to consolidate technologies, create new standards and modernize to achieve synergy goals. A new IT operations strategy was the only way forward.

Improving customer delivery with operational excellence

Data center consolidation was just one part of the overall end goal to transform the way Cornerstone Building Brands serves the market — and a holistic assessment laid the foundation for success. Insight used SnapStart — our proprietary discovery engine — to map all data center assets and dependencies, as well as identify candidates for the cloud.

Armed with this information, Cornerstone Building Brands leaned on Insight to migrate workloads to an Insight-hosted Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) strategic landing zone. The company has since realized a more modern way of building new workloads, leveraging the IaaS space and creating more operational efficiencies.

With Insight’s help, Cornerstone Building Brands is also strategically moving workloads to critical data centers that will remain within the company’s estate. Those workloads include mission-critical, revenue-generating applications that demand high availability, security and tight integration. This will drive improvement across electronic data interchange, order placement, revenue cycles and more.

Ensuring stronger security has also been imperative. With a once-diverse firewall landscape, the company is now simplifying management with a standardized firewall architecture across on-premises and cloud environments. This will minimize security gaps and better protect business assets.

Standardizing the network for better end-user experiences

Through this initiative, Cornerstone Building Brands has created a standardized experience for end users across North America, meeting the CBB Secure Network (SNOP) initiative by adopting Network as a Service (NaaS).

Key network objectives included:

• Reducing OpEx in network management, troubleshooting and outages
• Improving network performance
• Enabling proactive monitoring and maintenance
• Ending technology obsolescence

After a successful Proof of Concept (PoC) provided by Insight, Cornerstone Building Brands shifted from a multi-vendor environment to a single manufacturer as infrastructure is refreshed.

This initiative is designed to replace more than 4,000 network devices across the Cornerstone Building Brands footprint. A consistently reliable networking experience across company locations will reduce the chances of technology issues impacting production and distribution.

Peace of mind with Insight Managed Services

The technology teams remain focused on augmenting capacity and performance with the help of Insight Managed Services. The company looks to Insight to help run its infrastructure service offerings, and teams are now able to stay focused on strategic objectives.

The outcome: Prioritizing strategic needs — from innovation to expansion

By partnering with a solutions integrator like Insight, Cornerstone Building Brands has sidestepped routine issues — and can now focus on growing and transforming the business. The benefits are numerous:

A digital-first culture
Innovation is a core value for Cornerstone Building Brands. This commitment to innovation has rippled across the organization and is the leading cause for these transformational technology programs. Cornerstone Building Brands’ technologists have propelled the business with many firsts, from cloud-native apps driving customer portals to laying a strong foundation for automation. The plant's apps will have a direct impact on manufacturing operations — from improving plant productivity and inventory management to critical part wait times and overall efficiency.

Cost visibility and optimization
By partnering to consolidate and manage its data centers, Cornerstone Building Brands is realizing a more efficient and cost-effective strategy that can scale in the future.

Improved risk management
Modernized security infrastructure, updated governance and policies, reliable networking infrastructure, and an expert Managed Services team working 24/7 to maintain and optimize systems give Cornerstone Building Brands the stability and resilience it needs to ensure business continuity and a strong competitive stance.

Information, analysis and action
Today, business leadership has greater visibility into its IT environment, how it’s working and how to make improvements. Insight brings more than 25 years of data center and cloud expertise, a purpose-built discovery engine and proven services delivery methodologies to help the client’s decision-makers be most effective.

Championing the mission for years to come

With Insight, Cornerstone Building Brands has also built a Center of Excellence (CoE) with infrastructure program management to track and report on KPIs, keeping everyone accountable and aligned.

We, at Insight, are extremely grateful to operate as an extension of the Cornerstone Building Brands team, taking ownership and pride of the company’s success we've built together — today and in the future.

What’s your ambitious IT goal? Team up with Insight to transform your current challenges into game-changing outcomes.