The company, working in partnership with Avaya, has been awarded the £ multi-million contract to design and implement a new cutting edge back office Voice Network solution for the Capita Group Plc, the UK's leading provider of professional support services. In addition, Capita has committed the maintenance of its legacy TDM estate to Central until such time that the equipment is replaced with the new Voice Network solution.
The Capita Group is the UK’s leading provider of integrated professional support service solutions with an innovative portfolio of services, ranging from customer services, human resource and financial and software services, to information technology and property consultancy. In the year to 31 December 2005, turnover had increased to £1,436 million, with 26,000 employees operating across more than 250 sites.
The new solution will provide general telephony services for all staff based at Capita’s administration sites and around 1500 remote workers.
The project involves replacing the company’s existing voice technologies with a new Capita Voice Network (CVN), built on a centralised VoIP infrastructure, which will provide general user telephony and enhanced services to all parts of the Capita Group.
The first phase involves providing a core infrastructure onto which site-level deployments can be added. Over the next three years, traditional TDM-based voice services will be replaced with VoIP technologies and applications covering all general office-based and remote telephony users.
The migration from TDM to IP will be phased in accordance with end of life and/or the economic cost of supporting existing services and when office premises are opened or refreshed. The services offered within the solution will be carried forward to all future Capita sites.
Over the five year contracted period, new technologies and functionality will be adapted within the CVN as they become available and Central will drive a product roadmap to enhance the solution as the technology develops.
Current outbound call volume is in excess of 50 million minutes per annum and employee numbers have grown by around 20% per annum over the past decade. The new solution will be able to cater for an increase in users to more than 30,000 during the five year period.
Commenting on the contract award, Andrew McDougall, Managing Director of Central said:
“This is a major coup for Central and was achieved in the face of fierce competition. Over the years we have focused on leveraging the benefits of the technology rather than just selling networks and as a result, we have established a proven track record of technical capability, delivery, implementation and support at the highest levels.
“We have devised a high quality, best value for money solution for Capita, which meets the company’s stringent service expectations,” added Andrew.
Chris Money, Technical Director at Central continues:
“The Avaya platform has significant advantages over the competition in meeting Capita’s principal objectives, namely scalability, security, flexibility, reliability and ease of management.
“Along with the obvious economies of scale involved in introducing the new network, there will also be a whole host of other benefits, including greater utilisation of hardware and speedier deployment of voice services, centralised support and reduced maintenance costs, together with a reduction in cabling requirements for new site openings.
“The new solution will also result in enhanced working and increased productivity, plus increased mobility, since employees can just plug in and work wherever they are – whether it’s at home, an office location, conference rooms or hotspots.
“The Avaya platform is a product that we are uniquely familiar with and have built a solid reputation on, both in terms of implementing world class solutions and service delivery,” added Chris.
Ian Gates, Director of Group IT from Capita, added:
“Having looked carefully at a variety of manufacturers and implementation partners, we believe that the combination of Central Telecom and Avaya will give us the best value for money on our future back office voice systems. Capita also specialises in contact centre operations and this technology gives us an excellent platform for our business but with the added possibly of offering the voice solution to potential clients.”