New voice platform streamlines communications and saves time and money for sports brand
New voice platform streamlines communications and saves time and money for sports brand
Umbro, the English football brand, has upgraded its communications system to Avaya Communication Manager as the basis for all of its voice communications moving forward.
The upgrade aligns Umbro, a subsidiary of NIKE, with the rest of NIKE’s global network and is expected to save the company thousands of pounds a year in reduced admin and phone charges.
The company took the opportunity to upgrade from its legacy communications system as part of a move to a new head office, opted for a new Avaya system to replace an older PBX, which had reached capacity. It took the Avaya team three months to get the system up and running, without any disruption to service.
Move makes business sense
Danny Healey, Umbro IT operations manager, said: “Moving to a pure Avaya communications environment is good business sense, plain and simple. We are now aligned with our parent company and expect to see a significant reduction in our phone bill. Regardless of which office we speak to globally, the call can now be routed through the Avaya PBX network to ensure we pay the least amount possible for that call.”
He continued: “The installation was a real team effort. Avaya were with us every step of the way. To turn a new building from a shell, into a fully functioning office environment is no mean feat. The team did a perfect job.”
The new system has been designed to reduce the amount of time and resource invested in managing Umbro’s communications. New users can be added more quickly and day-to-day management of the system can be carried out via a Windows-based interface rather than requiring timely manual configuration.
Future-proofed investment
The system upgrade has also helped Umbro future proof its communications infrastructure, making capacity issues a thing of the past. Since Avaya Communication Manager can scale from just 2 to 36,000 extensions, additional staff and functionality can be quickly and easily added without compromising the systems or its reliability.
Lee Shorten, Avaya UK and Ireland managing director, said: “Umbro has embraced the benefits Avaya can deliver and we fully expect them to see a return on investment in under two years.”
The successful role out of the Avaya systems has encouraged Umbro to look at additional cost and functionality benefits the system can deliver. Future plans include the installation of soft phones on laptops to give mobile and remote workers easy access to their desk phone contacts and functions regardless of location. The move will also help Umbro to reduce the communication charges associated with mobile workers, the communications provider added.
