Davies Arnold Cooper has offices in London, Madrid, Manchester and Mexico City and specialises in dispute resolution, insurance and real estate.
Faced with intense competition, the firm wanted to take advantage of the latest technology to empower and motivate its mobile staff, whilst maintaining the highest level of customer service to ensure client satisfaction.
With offices in the UK and two international offices all working on different phone systems, it was proving both difficult and costly to manage them all. Increasing cross-border collaboration and a mobile workforce meant that costs of maintenance and calls to the international offices were growing. Stuart Cowell, IT Operations and Service Delivery Manager at Davies Arnold Cooper wanted to deploy an IP solution to improve overall communications and business processes. Davies Arnold Cooper sought advice from Scalable Communications, a leading voice and data provider, who recommended the Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP), together with Mitel Enterprise Manager.
“Scalable is a leading provider of communications solutions and we were impressed by their professional approach. We took their advice to deploy a Mitel IP solution and it offered us flexibility to migrate to IP at our own convenience, which was an important advantage. Mitel provided us with the choice of what technology to have and when to deploy it, this puts them head and shoulders above the competition.” said Cowell.
The solution allowed Davies Arnold Cooper to start saving money straightaway, which was an important consideration in the current economic climate. With all offices IP networked, internal calls between UK and international offices are now free because employees are on the same network.
With a large part of the work force working from clients' premises, visiting sites and working from home, the need was to provide the mobile workers with the technology to seamlessly support their different working behaviours. The most important requirement was to ensure that they had access to the corporate network and phone directory as well as their phone’s personal settings, regardless of their working location.
Mitel ‘hot desking’ is particularly useful for remote and mobile workers. No matter which Davies Arnold Cooper office the employee visits, by just entering their extension number and password they can access their personal phone settings – allowing clients and colleagues to reach them at the same number, wherever they are in the world. “An external caller could call an employee and one day they could be working from home, the next in a UK office or an international site,” says Cowell. “The caller does not know and does not need to know of the employee’s location – it is just not relevant.”
“Working in different time zones, employees don’t want to be stuck in an office until late into the night. The Mitel Teleworker presents us with the flexibility to offer employees the option of working out of hours from home if necessary. The Teleworker solution has also enabled the company to widen its recruitment catchment area. We now have employees who live all over the UK and work from home when they are not required in the office. Therefore it is advantageous for the company because we can employ highly skilled people wherever they live, again location is not important.” states Cowell.
Within a very short time of deployment, Davies Arnold Cooper has reaped the benefits of a Mitel IP solution – cost savings, easier connectivity as well as the ability to attract and retain customers and employees.
The company is considering extending the flexibility of the IP solution by giving employees the ability to work from client sites, airports or hotel rooms using Mitel Unified Communicator(R) Advanced. This multimedia application includes a soft-phone, presence and availability; secure instant messaging, audio conferencing as well as web and video collaboration that works in association with VoIP technology from the PC, laptop or any mobile device.