Bedford Industries Case Study - 16/06/2011Bedford is South Australia’s most diverse provider of opportunities for people with disability or disadvantage. With 24 offices and 400 staff all over the State, Bedford provides employment and training for more than 3,600 people through furniture, hospitality, horticulture, packaging, and various regional Australian Disability Enterprises (ADEs) or in the community. In addition, life skills education is offered through Bedford’s Day Options programme and key residential services in metropolitan and regional communities as well as accredited training through their registered training organisation. It is a large and multi-faceted organisation which counts big business and government as its clients but, until early 2010, Bedford’s communications system was not keeping up. The head office site in Panorama, Adelaide had a basic legacy system and each of the other sites had their own systems – many of them out of date or not supported. When it came time for the not-for-profit to review its communications, the push was to create “one, cohesive Bedford”. “Organisations like ours with a large physical reach, multiple sites operating varying kinds of business in very competitive markets face complicated communications issues. We worked very closely with Samsung to get the best result for Bedford and their support has been terrific.” Jill Seeman Information Technology Manager Bedford
SNAPSHOT
SOLUTION
Samsung Communications Centre in Adelaide designed a tailored solution, based on the flagship Samsung OfficeServ system. Bedford now has a communications platform which recognises the importance of each and every site, the particular function they perform and the communities they work in.
RESULTS
• Guaranteed connectivity between all sites
• Improved internal efficiencies
• Tangible cost savings between offices and in mobile calls
• Seamless transfer of outside calls into and between sites
• Easy access to local Samsung engineers, trainers and support staff
• Conference Bridge: the perfect tool to manage teleconferences, all via a web based interface
CHALLENGE
Samsung was brought into the Bedford project by OPTUS. Bedford required a whole new communications system – the Samsung/OPTUS’ team brief was to create a single communications strategy across all sites that would ensure connectivity, reduce costs and be fully future proof. For an organisation where geography necessitates a lot of travel, Bedford is one of the first in Australia to install Samsung’s newest cost saving initiative designed to simplify and streamline teleconferencing, the Samsung OfficeServ Conference Bridge.
ONE COHESIVE BEDFORD
In 1945, Bedford was born, with a focus on creating a brighter future for people with a disability through providing work, training and other life opportunities.
Some 66 years later, Bedford is now South Australia’s most diverse training and employment organisation for people with disability or disadvantage. Bedford’s mission is to equip people with diverse needs with the skills to gain employment in the community, live independently and realise their potential.
“We pride ourselves on our progressive nature and commitment to innovation. Our service offering is purposely broad to ensure that we are able to address the diverse and evolving needs of people with disability or disadvantage. An integral part of our service is the availability of pathways between programmes and locations to ensure that each individual can choose the best options and opportunities for them,” explains Bedford’s Information Technology Manager, Jill Seeman.
“And in order to achieve all of this, we need our infrastructure to be as professional and as effective as possible,” she says. “Reliable, cost-effective communication is key.”
In 2009, Jill and her Information Technology team faced a business dilemma. Bedford’s head office in Panorama, on the site of Adelaide’s old tuberculosis hospital - comprising an office, a packaging facility/ warehouse and a manufacturing division - was using an old Ericsson analogue/digital telephone system. With 150 extensions (64 of them digital) and 23 other sites around the State operating unsupported or out of date systems, she described their communications as “quite basic.”
“We did the sums and determined that the cost to replace existing cards with digital cards was going to be prohibitive. We needed something new which we could all use and we wanted IP phones. Our systems were all over the shop and we simply couldn’t talk to each other,” she says.
Jill contacted their telecommunications carrier, OPTUS, who brought Samsung on board.
“Unless we have top quality back room systems to support what we do in the field, we simply cannot perform immediately, professionally or effectively,” she explains. “With so many sites, we needed immediate, reliable connectivity between us all. Similarly, for the outside world, we have a 1300 number, clients, employees and partners everywhere - so we needed seamless communications for them as well. And economically, as a not-for-profit, we need maximum value for money in our systems’ investment and ongoing costs. The Samsung solution has well and truly delivered.”
THE SAMSUNG SOLUTION
Once Bedford had determined its requirements, Jill contacted their telecommunications carrier, OPTUS, who partnered with Samsung to provide the following solution.
The Samsung Communications Centre Adelaide solution included a fully IP OfficeServ 7400 at their main site.
As the ‘mother’ system, the Samsung OfficeServ 7400 is without peer. It is the ideal solution for the future and the present for many organisations, like Bedford, because it can simultaneously support traditional voice communication, VoIP (Voice over IP), IP-based data communication and wireless solutions through Wireless LAN.
The Panorama site has SIP trunks (OTPUS Evolve) and 110 IP Handsets. Handsets are mostly the 3100, but they also have some 14 and 24 button handsets.
All of the other sites have either an OfficeServ 7100 or an OfficeServ 7030 which are renowned as easy to install, economical phone systems with built-in performance and converged VoIP capabilities. These systems are ideal for the SMB market because they can plug into the power of convergence, are easy to use and are feature-rich.
All Bedford sites are SPNET networked with local analogue trunks. The future plan is to connect all IP handsets at remote sites to the main site at Panorama and use the local systems for local call hop off and incoming local call traffic.
Bedford is also one of the first sites in Australia to install the new Samsung OfficeServ Conference Bridge.
“With so many sites around the State, teleconferencing will become more increasingly an important business tool,” says Jill Seeman.
“The ability to quickly and efficiently set up audio conferences to keep team members up to date with information can often make a big difference. The Conference Module enables our OfficeServ 7400 system to provide this conferencing functionality and gives us total control of who is using it and when, also by not using an expensive hosted dial-in service, costs are in our direct control. Big system functionality small system cost is our philosophy.”
THE RESULTS FOR BEDFORD
The Bedford culture is “One Bedford: One Team”.
“No matter what business we’re in or where we are, we have a shared passion for bringing out the best in our people,” says Jill Seeman.
“As an organisation which provides opportunities for people with disability or disadvantage, we have an extra responsibility to make sure our systems work properly so that our support is reliable. On the other side of the coin, our customers are some of the largest businesses and government agencies in South Australia and indeed Australia, so we have to operate as efficiently and as professionally as possible.
“A top quality communications system is a must.”
Jill says that after a few initial teething issues on the network side, their Samsung hardware solution is performing as well as she could have hoped. “We’ve all had the Samsung training and I can’t speak more highly of their after sales support.”
THE FUTURE
One of the key features of the Samsung product, as Jill says, was its ‘future readiness’.
“Bedford has increased in size over the last 5 years to become a statewide organisation because of a considered and thoughtful approach,” she says. “We’re always looking for new opportunities to grow and evolve, so our communications system needs to be able to support that.
“I have every confidence in Samsung to move with us into the future.”
Jill explains that theirs is a staged approach to the new system’s evolution. “We’ve already done our first network audit - we need to make sure everything is fully stable before we do anything else.
“We’ll definitely be looking at more teleconferencing though the Samsung OfficeServ Conference Bridge in the future. So, for example, instead of bringing a manager in from Port Lincoln for a day meeting in Adelaide, we’ll be able to do it all via the new system. There’s lots of room to move there and take fuller advantage of that function. Plus, we’ll look at Samsung’s IP Unified Messaging solutions.”
But for now, Jill and her colleagues and the people they support, are happy with the Samsung OfficeServ solution.
“Bedfords needs to be flexible, responsible and professional,” she says. “Our Samsung OfficeServ communications system is more than meeting that brief.”
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