In the first instance, Honda wanted a managed homeworker solution comprising a broadband and analogue line to give each of its 160 teleworkers a more secure and flexible approach to how and where they work. The second phase of the project involved migrating Honda’s dealer wide area network onto Timico’s fully managed IP VPN Private Wide Area Network (PWAN) with a fully managed ADSL connection and Cisco router at each of the 135 dealer sites. Timico also provided Honda with a secure, easy to access, fully branded bespoke customer portal to enable staff to internally manage processes such as ordering new connectivity, as well as efficiently managing teleworker house moves and dealer changes, while also having the ability to track orders and hardware deliveries, and view invoices and billing data, all online.
“Combining our line rental and broadband services as part of Timico’s managed homeworker solution, has helped us significantly reduce our costs. The new routers enable all our teleworkers to connect wirelessly at home, giving them access to all our systems so they can work as effectively as they do in the office, and by working at home they are helping to cut our travel costs too. Also if any of our teleworkers were to move house, the routers are portable making the solution an environmentally friendly initiative, as well as providing us with an additional cost saving and significantly reducing the ‘hassle factor’. Another plus point is that Timico have agreed that all our teleworker connections will be automatically migrated to the faster ADSL 2+ service as soon as it becomes available in each area. This is a fantastic additional benefit and one of many reasons why we chose to partner with Timico for this project”, says Paul Kidd, Infrastructure Implementation Manager at Honda (UK).
When Honda chose to move away from its existing network provider, they asked Timico to install a single managed PWAN into the business to connect the majority of the company’s dealership sites. The features associated with Timico’s PWAN solution which Honda now benefits from include IP VPN connectivity, centrally hosted and managed resilient firewalls, proactive network monitoring and reporting, 24/7 technical support, plus management and configuration of Honda’s existing Cisco hardware. A key consideration for Honda when choosing a network partner was to find a company that had the internal resource to be able to take on the management and reconfiguration of their existing Cisco hardware to reduce the cost of change, and minimise the environmental impact of redundant hardware. All of Timico’s field-based engineers have an in-depth knowledge of Cisco hardware, meaning they were able to visit sites and successfully reconfigure all the existing hardware at Honda’s dealerships throughout the UK.
The new Wide Area Network links each of Honda’s dealership sites directly to Timico’s core network using a hub and spoke design. This now means that each location benefits from higher bandwidth, and each site has a clearer link into the Timico MPLS cloud, which is securely and privately partitioned away from any general internet traffic. All internet bound traffic now travels via their data centre, helping to reduce overheads and avoid ‘tromboning’ across other links into a central services site.
“We chose Timico because they were competitive in their pricing, and represented a significant change in our technology for our teleworker community and car dealers. Timico's professional approach and "can do" attitude is a world apart from our previous supplier. It makes a refreshing change to have full faith in knowing that a deliverable will in fact be delivered on. There is an element of risk in any migration to a new service provider, however Timico’s project management team and support personnel have made this roll out one of the smoothest we have had. We see Timico as a key strategic partner to Honda moving forward,” concludes Paul Kidd.