With its telecommunication contract coming to an end, our health insurance industry client decided to go to market. It needed subject matter experts to lead the RFP process, evaluate vendor responses, and manage the subsequent rollout/deployment across the organisation’s diverse business units.
The brief was for increased bandwidth to its 200 mixed sites (HQ, data centres, retail and remote), potential cost savings across its full data, voice and mobile spend, and new technologies such as VOIP.
Our lead consultants (Ian Pearce, CCO and Damien Pedersen, CTO) had overseen similar large-scale RFx’s and deployments over many years and are recognised for their extensive knowledge of the major telecommunication players in the Australian market.
They were the ideal choice to help the client evaluate contracts, pricing, service level agreements/targets, and better understand the preferred suppliers proposed savings versus its capability to deliver an ongoing service and support.
To implement, our consultants pulled together a team of network specialists from within the telco’s and client’s operations and brought in our own experts to conduct site audits and to provide and integrate the right technology solutions.
We assessed the telco provider’s proposed project implementation schedules and timelines and adjusted these in line with the needs of the client’s diverse businesses and their supporting technologies. For example, we identified additional work/remediation needed at some sites to bring them in line with standard site builds for easier deployment.
We provided consulting advice to the client’s IT Operations and business stakeholders and worked closely with other stakeholders, telco representatives and site managers to ensure quality handover, retained IP and buy-in across the entire process.
Milestones were reached on schedule, and there were no roll-backs or outages related to the upgrade.
The solution delivered new SIP-based IP telephony and bandwidth speeds up to twenty times that of the previous services, resulting in significant cost savings and greater productivity for users, especially at remote sites. Most importantly, it allowed the client to complete a full business transformation with its IT Shared Services / common platforms, efficiently and effectively with minimal business disruption.
Telco experience, vendor independence, technical skills and the right project, stakeholder and vendor management expertise provided an award-winning delivery. Our project/program lead, Ian Pearce, subsequently received two achievement recognition awards from our client.
Based on the success of the deployments so far, we continue to oversee delivery to business units not included in original scope, with an end date in mid-2019.