SKF Group testimonial

The SKF Group is the leading global supplier of products, customer solutions, and services in the business of rolling bearings and seals. SKF.com is acknowledged as the industry’s portal of choice, providing high-quality products, services and expertise-driven solutions that help customers succeed in their markets. Portal performance 24/7 is critical for SKF—especially in high growth markets like Asia Pacific. However, local hosting in Sweden meant that customers in the Far East often experienced low service quality compared to their European and North American counterparts. The challenge was compounded by the fact that SKF.com actually comprised 90 unique company Web sites. In 2003, as part of an effort to completely reinvent how the company approached the Web, SKF approached Akamai to help speed page delivery, improve availability across the globe, and reduce the cost of infrastructure buildout.

Deploying Akamai has produced success on several levels for SKF. First, performance improvements for customers in the Asia Pacific region has resulted in a 30 percent increase in traffic—without any additional sales or marketing efforts. Second, page download speeds have increased across all regions, ensuring a consistent, high-quality user experience regardless of geographical location. Finally, relying on Akamai has significantly reduced operational complexity for SKF by enabling them to migrate virtually all of their company Web sites to the Akamai platform. It all combines to support SKF’s long-term strategy of repositioning itself as a “knowledge engineering” and solution-oriented provider. Customers can engage with SKF earlier in the design and manufacturing process, resulting in a closer partnership—and a more profitable business.

"Within one month of implementing the new delivery solution, we’ve experienced a dramatic 30% increase in traffic from this region—without any additional sales or marketing effort."
—Richard Olivecrona, Director of Internet and Intranet Management, SKF