A case study – Communications Solutions.
ICA work with United Carpets from failing to excellence prevailing for the right strategy for their communications solutions.
From failing to excellence prevailing
United Carpets and Beds is part of United Carpets Group plc – the third largest carpet retail chain in the UK, with 60 stores, of which 49 are operated by franchisees.
The business challenge
Customer service was blighted by failing Cisco telephony and legacy systems: a slow MPLS solution and NGN platform for 0800 numbers. There were limited channels on the ISDN30 – and no reporting software or business visibility due to a lack of communications solutions.
The ICA solution
After examining a number of options, ICA replaced the telephone system with a virtualized Avaya solution. The legacy ADSL MPLS was upgraded to a fibre MPLS solution. All NGNs were migrated to a new platform and the ISDN30 was ported out to SIP. ICA introduced SIP trunk call manager to queue traffic for the busiest numbers, as well as Avaya Call Reporting to monitor call traffic in and out of the business. Therefore improving the overall communications solutions.
How ICA work
ICA gathered a range of information from the client, including timescales, budget, bills, supplier information and portal access. We then completed an audit of the communications spend across the business and the impact of the failings. Using our extensive market knowledge, we produced a minimum requirement proposal, as well as optional extras – and presented the client with several vendor options and full demonstrations based on their requirements.
The outcome: A more effective way of doing business
Sharing business data is now much more efficient thanks to improved network speeds. A stable telephone system with DR plan provides increased visibility of business activity – allowing ICA to work with United Carpets and Beds on a continued improvement plan.
CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL
The work ICA has carried out with us has had a significant impact on our business. As well as improving performance, we can now more effectively gather and share valuable business intelligence that we can use to increase our capabilities and our profitability – (Adam Mitchell, IT Manager).
