BACKGROUND & CHALLENGE

D’Addario is one of the largest privately-held manufacturers of musical instrument strings and accessories for fretted and orchestral instruments. The company’s world headquarters is in Farmingdale, New York. D’Addario is committed to sustainably providing musicians with the most innovative musical accessories in the world.

Since Sparkhound began working with D’Addario in 2014, the company has gone through several significant Microsoft infrastructure upgrades. They were facing constant disruptions in day-to-day sales operations and internal communications. Sparkhound made crucial infrastructural improvements to boost internal communication continuity and enhance the consumer purchase experience in D’Addario’s online store.

SOLUTION

Sparkhound began improving and expanding the functionality of D’Addario’s Microsoft infrastructure and ecosystem for more effective and efficient management and collaboration experiences:

  • Achieved D’Addario’s required degree of PCI compliance via prevention of transmission of credit card information via email

  • Improved client security by developing regular software update cadence

  • Boosted identity accuracy by creating an automated process that synced data straight from D’Addario’s HR system to Active Directory

  • Enhanced control of formerly independent IT environments by migrating and consolidating users, email, computers, and servers

OUTCOMES

  • Zero messaging service downtime over a 5 year period

  • No disruptions in Sales & Marketing as a result of significant improvements to their Microsoft tech stack

  • Much higher degree of control over previously disparate IT environments