About Family Action
Family Action provides practical, emotional and financial support to disadvantaged and socially isolated families across England.
Why Family Action chose Class Networks
Following a rigorous tendering process Class Networks and Ethical IT were appointed to upgrade the entire IT system and Communications infrastructure and demonstrated a collaborative approach to implementation and on-going support.
What was the challenge?
Family Action’s core systems, applications and network were creating real operational challenges. Frequent disconnections, slow system speeds and out of date applications were causing compatibility issues; frustrating staff and external stakeholders.
In addition, head office and regional offices were using disparate, on-premise telephony systems making it difficult and costly to manage incoming and outgoing calls across the organisation.
Managing its growing mobile fleet for remote workers was also becoming increasingly complex and expensive due to numerous supplier contracts, old and varying hardware and differing pricing packages that didn’t meet their needs.
What was the solution?
- Hosted IT – our IT partner Ethical IT was appointed to implement an entirely hosted virtual office, removing all incumbent server hardware and incorporating and upgrading their database applications into a secure Data Centre environment with full back up.
- Wide Area Network – existing network was converted to a managed MPLS solution, a private, secure centrally managed Wide Area Network for its 60+ sites.
- Hosted Telephony – Avaya IP Office Server edition was installed into a managed Data Centre connecting head office, regional offices and remote workers utilising the MPLS network.
- Centralising its mobile fleet – migrated all mobile connections from disparate service providers and networks into one centrally managed solution, upgrading hardware and data connectivity.
What was the outcome?
- Consistent user experience – all users can access the same information and enjoy identical functionality for IT and telephony services at every site.
- Increased productivity – as a fully managed end to end solution, valuable internal resource can now focus on core activities.
- Reduced cost – voice and data now run on the same network enabling redundant connectivity to be discontinued. Calls between sites, mobile to site and mobile to mobile are free. Maintenance and power costs for multiple Servers and Telephony Systems have been eliminated.
- Greater resilience and security – Sites are connected directly to the MPLS network with secure access supported by a single, centralised firewall with one gateway onto the public network.
- Built-in disaster recovery – in cases of site emergencies incoming calls can quickly and easily be redirected and staff can log in at home as though they were in the office.
- Expandable platform – additional sites and users can be connected quickly and seamlessly.
- Managed service desk – users have a single point of contact for all IT and telephony issues.
Family Action
Posted in Case Studies