NEC Unified Solutions: a very successful move…

When NEC moved Head Office, they asked us to make sure it was business as usual for their customers. What happens when an IT and communications provider loses its own IT and communication connectivity?

When NEC Unified Solutions had to move Head Office, this was the uncomfortable question on the mind of Solutions Development Director, Steve Derbyshire.

“We had to continue business as usual even though our building lease had expired and we’d face financial penalties if we stayed beyond the agreed date. So finding the right solution was absolutely critical. The office move was inevitable and we needed an economical way forward – we were under genuine time pressure to get this resolved.”

NEC also had big growth plans for the future, so its refreshed network had to be resilient and future-proof too.

Finding a supplier to deliver all this within the timeframe and at a competitive price was proving difficult, that is until Steve involved us:

“Virgin Media Business could deliver on price and service. Other suppliers were factored out because they either didn’t have a local presence or couldn’t offer the flexibility we needed.

By contrast, every aspect of Virgin’s proposal was good news as far as we were concerned.”

Neil King, Account Manager at Virgin Media Business, says that the rush of adrenaline he felt came from two very different sources. Firstly, from the fact that we’d won the contract. Secondly, from the sheer scale of the challenge.

“From a standing start, we now needed to install three National Ethernet connections and two Managed Internet Access connections within six to eight weeks, plus ISDN30 for the everyday phone calls and call traffic.”

All of this was delivered in time for the move.

As a result NEC could look after their customers as normal from day one in their new offices.

Business continuity and disaster recovery plans were put in place between the two key sites. If the IT and telephony infrastructure in one site went down, it could be replicated from the other. Instantly.

What’s more NEC’s customers remained blissfully unaware that a geographic move and a significant network overhaul had even taken place.

As Steve Derbyshire says: “The only thing the customers might have noticed was the change of address on the headed stationery.”

NEC can now concentrate on building their business for the future – a future which Neil King hopes that Virgin Media Business will play a part in growing:

“After two years of working together, this relationship is really starting to flourish. The customer knows they can come to us with any challenge and we’ll work together to make things happen.”

“We went with Virgin Media Business because they could deliver on price and service. The only thing the customers might have noticed was the change of address on the headed stationery,” said Steve.