I think remote monitoring could be useful. E.g. "Fridge X in store Y has failed, we can book an engineer". However even then: it should be secure within the network and not accessible outside it. And the other issue is monitoring is fine, but why on earth do you need remote access to defrost a unit? That is just asking for trouble.

I bet cost cutting is at the centre of this - cheaper to have one person able to "manage" problems off site than having people available local to all the stores. But when you save money like this, you need to spend money to ensure it's secure. And often they don't because all these companies cut all costs all the time to boost share prices. And that includes competent people in IT and networking. Probably outsourced to some conglomerate that doesn't give a fuck.