Keeping Up With Crocs

Crocs are a fashion phenomenon. From Hollywood to New York, the rubbery open-air Crocs shoe fad has swept the globe. You can't go anywhere in warm weather without catching a glimpse of the vibrantly colored, clog-like shoes that are so comfortable even nurses, chefs and kids can't get enough of them.

From 2002 to 2006, Crocs went from selling 75,000 units in just the United States to selling more than 20 million units in 40 countries. In that same period, the company's staff went from three to more than 1,100. And the numbers keep climbing. That kind of growth required a rapidly scaling IT infrastructure, and Boulder, Colo.-based solution provider Evolve Technologies paved every step of the way.

Evolve has been with Crocs since the shoe company opened its doors in 2002. That's when the VAR provided the startup shoemaker with rudimentary Internet access and basic phone service. When the business started to hum, Evolve was there with advice, equipment and expertise.

"I knew a couple of the original investors and I had helped them with other communications projects," says Evolve president Doug Hanson. "So they came to me and said, 'What would you do if this was your company?'"

Evolve prides itself on being very hands-on with its customers, helping to break down different product offerings and present the value proposition of solutions. "Whether the customer needs Internet, local or long-distance phone service, phone systems, the backbone or switches--you name it, we want to be involved," Hanson says.

NEXT: Growth changes IT needs

The relationship between Crocs and Evolve demonstrates more than just how a solution provider can effectively deploy technology to meet the needs of a customer. It's also a perfect example of how partnerships can allow end users and their VAR allies to evolve.

As the Niwot, Colo.-based shoe company hired more employees and opened new locations, Evolve continued to work as its partner. Communication and networking became increasingly critical for Crocs as the company ventured overseas and needed to ensure it could stay connected. Evolve initially set up an Avaya telephony system for Crocs, but soon the company outgrew that solution. Crocs hired its own IT director, who continued working closely with Evolve to build a flexible infrastructure to allow for the company's rapid growth.

Meanwhile, Crocs grew at a phenomenal rate. Between 2002 and 2004, it added about 20 employees a month. In 2005, the number of new hires worldwide ramped up to about 100 a month. The spate of new employees had to be trained and brought online quickly.

"They were adding people so fast, and they wanted to start connecting multiple sites," Hanson says. "Their vision was to become a company that could hit just four digits to dial any employee, anywhere in the world."

Hanson started looking for a VoIP solution to fit Crocs' needs and, in the process, discovered that the company also needed a "solid backbone" on which to build the telephony solution.

A ShoreTel partner since 2002, Evolve regarded the vendor's VoIP product as "rock solid" and suitable for Crocs, Hanson says. But the shoe company wanted to consider all of its options, so it evaluated products from Cisco and Avaya before settling on ShoreTel's.

As for the backbone, Hanson decided--over a round of golf with one of the founders of Extreme Networks--to bring the alternative networking vendor into the mix. "They had great scalability and power in their offerings," says Hanson.

Crocs needed something scalable, for sure, but at a reasonable price, and Evolve came through with a ShoreTel-Extreme solution. "From the end-user standpoint, [the solution] is easy to use and understand, and it allows Crocs to touch any site they have from their Niwot location," says Hanson. "It's a real time-saver for a company growing as quickly as Crocs."

NEXT: Working hand-in-hand

As it turned out, ShoreTel and Extreme had been working together to create a converged solution for midsize companies when Evolve's need for a backbone arose.

"The combination of growth, change and staffing shortages, and the need to deploy advanced technologies, heightens the role of the resellers," says Scott Lucas, Extreme's senior director of solutions marketing. "The demand is then on the vendors to make sure solutions are compelling and easy-to-use. We're embracing an open strategy that allows you to integrate with folks like ShoreTel."

Larry Stein, marketing director at ShoreTel, adds that his company has been focusing on partnering with other vendors and has fostered a close relationship with Extreme. The two companies work together on interoperability testing to make sure the combined product sets will be easy to integrate and implement.

"You can't deliver a high-quality IP-telephony solution without a robust, high-performance network," Stein says. "The two go hand in hand, and Extreme makes a high-performance, reliable solution. It's a natural fit."

That relationship involves ongoing work on both sides. "We meet with partners like Evolve and discuss our plans to make sure they have the right solution requirements and that ShoreTel field-sales reps and engineering personnel are connected," says Stein. "We even make introductions to the Extreme field-sales and engineering people, so we're engaged to ensure the customers get what they need."

Extreme's Lucas adds that the ecosystem a customer interacts with has to be more than the sum of its parts. "We look at what ShoreTel brings and what Extreme brings, and it's all channeled through Evolve and our partners," he says. "Those partners are pivotal. They tie things together and understand the customer needs and requirements."

As for the growing importance of networking and VoIP, Stein says that buying a phone system can be a "career-limiting move" for end users. "There's a lot to lose," he says. "If a copier goes down for the day, people are annoyed. If the phone system goes down for the day, people might lose their jobs."

That's why Evolve worked very closely with the Crocs IT team. "We had several planning sessions on how we would set up the network, how we were going to build it and what the IP schemes would be," Hanson says. "Then we went out and set it up, and we took two of their IT folks with us. We sat down with them and trained them on using the systems and doing the administration."

Crocs is now running the network and VoIP solution itself, but Hanson says Evolve acts as a second-layer provider. "When they get overrun, we go in and help them catch up again." The VAR also acted as the network provider and negotiated direct-access fiber from Level 3.

In the end, big growth signals big opportunity for solution providers, whether they get in at the ground level or come onboard to help a customer along the way.