Impact Awards: How RES. Business IT upgraded Reward Hospitality’s system to meet expansion demands

RES. Business IT was named winner of the Modernising Infrastructure Award category in the 2025 techpartner.news Impact Awards earlier this month for transforming Reward Hospitality’s outdated IT infrastructure.

Food service business Reward Hospitality was expanding rapidly, reaching 27 sites across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands but found it was being held back by outdated infrastructure, leading to slow site rollouts and escalating downtime risks.

It was using an multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) network that meant new locations could take months to get online, and lacked a modern cybersecurity framework that put the company at risk of cyber attacks and breaches.

With a small IT team that was occupied maintaining a failing system, there was little opportunity for innovation or strategic growth.

Reward engaged RES. Business IT to deliver a modernisation programme that would bring the company’s systems up to date, prepared for further improvements and innovation.

RES migrated the company’s systems onto Microsoft Azure, which improved reliability and introduced robust disaster recovery.

It also allowed the staff spread across various states and countries to have consistent and secure access to core systems, reducing disruptions and improving connectivity.

RES replaced the MPLS system with a Fortinet software-defined wireless access network (SD WAN), which not only reduced ongoing connectivity expenses, but also reduced new site onboarding time from months to weeks.

Finally, Reward’s security was brought up to date with a zero-trust framework as RES implemented identity-based access controls and Microsoft Defender across all endpoints, minimised the risk of costly breaches or compliance issues without increasing overheads.

Overall, the modernisation project not only made the Reward Hospitality’s systems more scalable and reliable, but lowered infrastructure maintenance costs and improved operational efficiency.

RES invested the time to deeply understand Reward Hospitality’s business model, growth plans, and operational constraints to develop a roadmap that would meet the companies needs into the foreseeable future.

The upgrades were deployed across the 27 locations in a carefully sequenced, multi-phased rollout designed to minimise disruption, while being flexible enough to adjust the schedule when urgent integration was needed for newly acquired sites.

RES worked closely with the Rewards team throughout the project with regular planning and review sessions, giving early warnings of risks and changes, and providing tailored guidance for the IT staff.

Reward Hospitality’s IT manager Beau Millhouse said the holistic approach to the modernisation was critical in supporting wider business goals.

“Prioritising the SD-WAN project delivered rapid value to the business. We were able to connect new teams and bring sites online quickly, even as broader projects were still underway."

"The flexibility and speed of implementation were game changers for our expansion efforts" - Beau Millhouse, Reward Hospitality

“RES. Business IT didn’t just solve our immediate problems – they helped us build an IT foundation that could grow with us. Their strategic approach has been essential to our success, and I’d recommend any expanding business work with a partner who can offer this level of foresight.”