Dimensions gets connected
Award-winning project for comms business: "Converged ICT project of the year" 2018!
Dimensions is one of the country’s largest not-for-profit organisations geared towards helping those with learning disabilities, autism, challenging behaviour and complex needs. With over 7000 members of staff supporting people and their families across 750 sites, Dimensions plays an active part in helping communities UK-wide. Dimensions turned to Nasstar when it wanted to upgrade its ageing IT infrastructure, as well as consolidate its multitude of existing suppliers to just one in order to ensure total flexibility and greater cost efficiencies.
Services
Collaboration and Communication
Unified Comms
Fully Managed Support Services
The Brief
The huge challenge of supplying IT and network services to 750 sites across the UK was catching up with Dimensions’ ageing network infrastructure. With slow and sluggish bandwidth, the network was becoming insufficient for Dimensions and those it supports. The company was struggling under the weight of 22,000 support tickets a month and on average 1,000 “password reset” calls a week. Most importantly for Dimensions, legacy systems and poor network infrastructure was negatively impacting the support it could offer to those under its care, as well as the efficiency of its staff.
The network was unreliable to the point of almost being unusable, and for those who depended heavily on it for learning, support and regularity compliance, this was a critical element that needed addressing - fast. The network, therefore, required a complete upgrade to support the evolution of the organisation and provide the flexibility that was necessary to deliver a future-proof and scalable IT strategy.
Wanting to reduce capital expenditure and eliminate the complexities of running on-premise systems, Dimensions placed an emphasis on making a strategic move to one single partner, as opposed to the 40+ it had at the time. To utilise Cloud-based services, further reduce hardware costs and improve collaboration, Dimensions also required a more efficient communications solution which would need to support high call volumes and could reduce waiting times, as call handling from staff and outside agencies was under pressure with an increasing number of enquiries into Dimensions’ regional offices.
The Benefits
Dimensions now has a robust Network Infrastructure with high-speed connectivity, with staff reporting that line speeds are already 100x faster. Its omni-channel Unified Communications solution and fully-scalable Contact Centre allows the company to deliver a more streamlined customer experience; with its Service Users typically having special needs and often being visually or hearing impaired, joining up their methods of communication makes it much easier for Dimensions to quickly assist them.
An unexpected cost-saving benefit was that by using Skype for Business to deliver its training, Dimensions has reduced the amount spent on this crucial task by two thirds. Approximately 80% of its staff are not native English speakers, and previously the company’s trainers had to travel to each of the 750 individual sites to deliver essential training in the staff members’ native language to ensure vital information on lifting, drugs and more was not “lost in translation”. Delivering this training remotely means that Dimensions’ travel costs for training have been virtually eliminated, allowing the company to redirect this money back into delivering its life-changing services.
Additionally, the use of Microsoft Teams to upload and update complex documents such as care plans means that staff members can fill in these forms in their own language, with Teams translating questions and answers as necessary to help avoid mistakes. Best of all for Dimensions, by consolidating all its suppliers and selecting leading managed services specialist Nasstar to manage all its services, multiple challenges could be addressed at once whilst striving for maximum cost efficiencies, safe in the knowledge that the company is supported 24/7.
The Solution
Nasstar upgraded Dimensions’ Network Infrastructure, meaning that the company could decommission its ageing on-premise servers and utilise Cloud Computing via Nasstar’s own dedicated and secure data centres. By doing so, the charity will save on hardware and management costs, which frees up funds and personnel for other projects. A network boost to all nine core regional sites delivers dedicated dual-fibre MPLS network connectivity, with a further 750 sites receiving high-speed Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) or ADSL2+, enabling full Wi-Fi at all sites for staff, guests and their families.
For collaborative communications, Nasstar also deployed 1750 Skype for Business seats which run fully from the Cloud in a Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solution. This was further enhanced by the deployment of 80 Enghouse Contact Centre seats, wallboards and integrated operator consoles at all regional centres, delivering an omni-channel solution that is fully integrated with Skype for Business. Enghouse is a leading expert in customer communications, providing one of the most comprehensive sets of Contact Centre interaction management tools in the industry. They offer ideal synergies with Nasstar's own Unified Communications and Cloud expertise, and with the integration of Skype for Business, Dimensions would benefit from an improved overall interactive customer experience. The solution would also afford the company greater cost savings and a feature-rich user experience with video conferencing, instant messaging, and the presence and mobility app.
Nasstar also provides a Fully-Managed Support Service for Dimensions that ensures the company has access to technical staff round-the-clock, as well as relieving stress from its internal IT team.
This was no “ordinary” tender; we provided an exhaustive brief, containing 72,000 line items across 750 sites. We didn’t want to have “suppliers” anymore – of which there were over 40 – and instead wanted to work with just one partner that would truly understand our needs, culture and desired outcomes. Nasstar were the only company that we considered able to demonstrate this, and we felt that Nasstar wanted to do a good job for us, rather than just make money.