Phoenix IT Group
Rebirth of a network
Like many successful businesses,
Phoenix IT Group found itself expanding with offices and clients
spread across the country. As acquisitions led to more and more
growth, the company inherited a patchwork of networks run by
separate providers. Maintaining this became time consuming, costly
and tricky to keep on top of.
As an IT company offering outsourcing, consultancy, disaster
recovery and business continuity, Phoenix IT Group needed both
network reliability and resilience. It needed to simplify its
infrastructure with a single high performance network to link all
the offices together.
One solution. One company.
End-to-end service from a single company was what it really
wanted. Not another product from one company and a service from
another. ICM, one of the Group’s acquired companies, recommended us
on the strength of previous work we had carried out together. This,
combined with our UK-wide reach convinced the Group to choose us.
The National Ethernet connections we went on to install have solved
the issue. Employees now work more efficiently, processes are
smarter and the company’s clients are enjoying much improved
service.
Better customer service achieved
through better customer service
Our locally-based team worked closely with the Group to ensure
the solution we proposed met all of its requirements. For instance,
it was absolutely vital that the Group could offer its clients the
highest possible performance standards. So between us we wrote and
agreed a custom-made Service Level Agreement (SLA).
Then there was the issue of managing
the network. Understandably for an IT company who market themselves
on their flexibility and responsiveness, the Group wanted to have
complete control over this. Again, that’s what we delivered.
In-house staff control the National Ethernet connections we
installed – so the company can respond immediately to customer
requests.
The IT upgrade
The upgrade was phased in, initially joining up four core sites,
soon followed by 12 other offices. And because our network is a
Next Generation Network, it comes with masses of bandwidth.
Each site has a minimum 1Gbit/s bearer
so bandwidth can be increased further when required – a great
insurance against any future business changes.
Cleared for take off
The new network is leading to improved efficiency at the Group’s
offices. There is a project to consolidate all email and active
directory systems. This will allow staff to access services from
any of the Group’s offices. And there’s a bonus too – cost savings
with the number of servers required tumbling from 12 to four.
Customers can now use the Group’s network to access services
hosted for them like databases and applications. For instance, a
company can link to one of the Group’s data centres via whichever
Group office is nearest to them. This results in dramatically
reduced costs for that customer. Group-wide communications have
improved too. Staff can now access databases and applications
stored at different offices. This has put them in a position to
offer better levels of customer service.
Then there’s the IP-based applications
that can now run over our Next Generation Network. Video
conferencing is helping to cut down on travel between offices,
while IP Telephony has drastically reduced phone costs. All this,
along with our network’s scope means that as the Group continues to
grow, it will not lose control of its IT infrastructure.
