Targetfollow leads the way with VoIP

Managed office company furnishes 70 St Mary Axe with VoIP system to give cost savings and robust telephony to customers

About Targetfollow

The Targetfollow group is a leading property acquisitions company with a portfolio of over £800m, including London's famous Centre Point, Tollworth Tower and Baskerville House in Birmingham. Its properties are let to retail, office, residential and leisure customers. Targetspace is Targetfollow's managed office subsidiary, and amongst others, looks after 70 St Mary Axe.

The Challenge

In the shadow of the Gherkin, 70 St Mary Axe lies in the heart of the city of London.

After acquiring this property, Targetspace was faced with the challenge of equipping this large office space with voice and data connections in order to furnish it to the highest possible specification. After consideration, Targetspace decided that using a traditional telephony system would not be flexible enough and that having their own PBX on-site would add an unacceptable cost to the serviced offices.

Furthermore, it was likely that once companies moved into 70 St Mary Axe, they would rent additional office space in other properties in Targetfollow's portfolio and would want to link the telephony systems together. It was important that Targetspace could make this arrangement as efficient as possible for both parties, and consequently, the group began to look at newer, hosted IP-based solutions which could offer these calls at a cheaper, or even free, rate.

Targetspace also wanted to make its voice and data network as streamlined, efficient and future proof as possible. It was imperative that customers could be offered as competitive a pricing structure, so Targetspace was keen to get the best possible deal on its telephony system.

The Solution

The company examined a number of solutions, including traditional voice, as well as BT, Viatel and Avaya's VoIP offerings before deciding to implement Viatel's Hosted IP Voice solution.

We needed a solution which was both flexible and had the infrastructure behind it to meet our constantly changing needs, and Viatel provided this,� said Shaun Riches, IT manager at Targetfollow. The other solutions we considered were either far too expensive and required a commitment to a fixed number of seats, or else we weren't convinced that they could do exactly what we wanted, the way we wanted to do it.
Targetfollow set Viatel a three-month timeline for implementation, which was met, and the project was delivered on budget.

Results

Targetfollow's managed offices in 70 St Mary Axe are now fully equipped with a business-class 400 user VoIP solution which exactly meets their needs. Not only does it offer a reliable service to its customers, but it is also highly competitive because the Viatel VoIP solution delivers extremely cost effective call charges.

The VoIP system is essentially future proof because the software can be automatically updated remotely, rather than having to manually update a standard PBX. Targetfollow are currently opting to maintain their own system at the Viatel premises but in future, should they wish to, all the work could be carried out by a Viatel engineer. Having a hosted solution also effectively gives Targetfollow a business continuity strategy for voice because all of the equipment is hosted off-site. Should something happen to prevent workers getting into central London or the main office itself, they can simply plug an IP phone or SoftClient into any broadband connection and make and receive calls on the same office number as if they were still in the office.

The Viatel solution has worked really well for us, continued Riches. The user interface is easy to use, and we're assured of call quality and security. Furthermore, if any of the companies in the office need to work from home or a remote location for any reason, they can use the VoIP solution from any internet access point. Having VoIP means that our telephony system is essentially future proof and will not need any substantial investment in the future to keep it up-to-date, and we can continue to offer the very best value and quality to our customers.

In the future, Targetfollow is planning to use Viatel's VoIP service at many other of its managed office locations, throughout London and the UK.

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