invited to a ceremony to mark the re-opening of the offices, which was attended by Her Majesty the Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh.
The new telephony system introduced by BP&N is the Virtual Mitel Communications Director (VMCD), the industry’s first virtualised voice communications software application, which has allowed the London offices to maintain excellent, continuous contact with regional offices in Australia, Jamaica and Kenya.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation has improved the quality of their telephony platform whilst reducing costs as a result, which is always crucial for a charity. This is because the server virtualisation and management tools employed reduce physical server footprint, thereby reducing costs. Along with real estate savings, this also resulted in server management automation and data centre process standardisation.
Capital expenditure was reduced, as dedicated physical servers and appliances were no longer required. This led to reduced operations and maintenance costs, as telephony was integrated within VMware virtual infrastructure, resulting in a communication solution that could be managed with other virtualised business applications.
Commenting on their new telephony system, Mike Heath, Head of Information Management at The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Foundation said, “We are always looking for ways to reduce our costs and were keen to explore new methods of using technology. When BP&N approached us with a telephony solution that helped in both areas, we were very excited to partner with them. Not only were we able to reduce our costs significantly, the new system was simple to implement, with the team at BP&N guiding us through the process of
migration in a very fast and professional manner.
The end result is a telephony solution we are extremely proud of, which is much more efficient than our previous installation. The solution improves our business continuity capabilities and gives us expansion possibilities we have never previously considered.”