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Credit: ThisIsEngineering

Remote Hands & Shipping Case Study for Disney+

Disney had a tight timeline to install gear in Amsterdam. FGX’s Global Shipping Platform managed staging to shipping and remote hands.

Problem:

Disney+ had a tight timeline to install gear in Amsterdam for their product launch. This meant they had to buy, configure, ship, and install all of their hardware—and in Disney+’s case, they needed $7m of hardware to be installed in 30 cabinets in the Netherlands. Ordinarily, Disney+ would have to find, vet and onboard in-market vendors for hardware procurement and then another vendor for remote-hands—which as you may be familiar with, is painful and time consuming. But with FGX Go, Disney+ would be able to do everything from staging and integration to shipping and remote hands with one partner.

ConcernsFGX’s Solution
Disney+ had bad experiences with shipping IT hardware internationally in the past.Most logistics companies, including freight forwarders are not good at shipping IT hardware because it’s a complex commodity. FGX is only focused on moving IT.
Disney+ had tight timelines and needed additional engineering resources in the datacenter.FGX’s private supply-chain is one of the fastest in the world for moving IT hardware by utilizing direct air-freight and in-house customs clearances. We also provided remote-hands services to make the installation process seamless.

Solution:

FGX’s Global Shipping Platform

FGX’s Global Shipping Platform comes is built for IT and infrastructure people. Our shipping platform is one of the only platforms that exist that can seamlessly move IT hardware door-to-DC into over 170 countries. Our clients don’t have to deal with customs, logistical, tax or compliance concerns, FGX’s platform manages it all.

“That’s where FGX’s Global Shipping Platform comes in—it was built for IT and infrastructure people. Our shipping platform is one of the only in existence that can seamlessly move IT hardware door-to-DC into over 170 countries. Our clients don’t have to deal with customs, logistical, tax or compliance concerns, FGX’s platform manages it all.”

(Our Elevator Pitch)

Pre-Shipping

FGX Flex’s services enables teams to augment our shipping platform with services that serve their project needs, like: consolidation of purchases, configuration, asset-tagging and remote-hands installation. Disney+ had FGX store all of their purchases from 13 different OEMs at our warehouse. FGX manifested each device so that the serial number, part numbers, and photos were viewable in our database for inventory tracking. We tagged the devices with asset-tags provided by Disney+ before the shipments went out.

Shipping

Once all the equipment had arrived at FGX’s US warehouse, FGX’s Global Shipping Platform delivered the hardware straight to the datacenter. Disney+ didn’t have to worry about getting the freight tendered to the airline, export / import clearance, or last-mile delivery. All along the way, Disney+’s engineering and project management team received detailed daily tracking updates with ETAs.

Post-Shipping: Remote Hands

Because Disney+ also opted for FGX’s remote-hands services, FGX was able to coordinate the shipment’s delivery to meet with our remote-hands team on the planned installation date—a common point of friction that was made easy because everything was being managed under one roof.

We worked with Disney+’s engineering team to pre-equip our remote-hands resources with all the relevant installation documentation, datacenter ticket #s and scope of work.

Conclusion

Everything was seamless for Disney+, from ordering to installation. After the project scope was decided (understanding what the BOM was, where it had to go, and what sort of installation services were required,) FGX executed the rest. The entire project took 2.5 weeks to complete, ended up 20% cheaper than if they sourced everything locally, and reduced Disney+’s engineers’ workload by an estimated hundred hours. Disney+ continues to use FGX for their expansion into markets all around the world, like in Japan, Europe, and Singapore.

To Disney+, there’s nothing new when they have to launch in a new market. FGX serves as a platform that enables companies to scale their global infrastructure easily and stress-free into any market they need it in.