three-glanbia-generic02-1908x460

Glanbia Agribusiness cuts costs, boosts efficiency

With Three’s hosted unified communications

  

Case Study

Building on its dairy base, Glanbia has developed a global leadership position in specialist nutritionals with both a business-to-business and business-to-consumer focus. While the US and Europe represents Glanbia’s largest markets, the Group continues to expand its presence in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America. The company is highly innovative and is always looking to leverage the latest technology to streamline its business and maximise service to customers.

Glanbia operates over 50 Agribusiness sites in Ireland. Three was the incumbent mobile provider. In 2012 Glanbia put its fixed and mobile business out to tender to see if it could harness the benefits of a single comms provider. Challenges included an ageing PBX infrastructure across multiple locations which were proving expensive to maintain. There was no connectivity between its 50+ branches which meant that inter branch telephone calls over the public network were costly.

Solution

Following intensive analysis of the various vendors, Glanbia selected Three for its combined fixed and mobile solution across 240 users. “Many people view Three as a mobile vendor but its hosted unified communications infrastructure ticked all the fixed line boxes for us as well” comments Nickey Brennan, Group Purchasing Manager for Business Services & I.T.at Glanbia plc.

Launched in collaboration with Cisco, Three’s hosted unified communications solution. allows businesses to combine their fixed and mobile telephone, voicemail and instant messaging into a single managed cloud-based service with no upfront capital expenditure. The service is charged on the basis of a monthly rental per user for the service. “Three’s unified communications eliminates the need for organisations to have expensive PBX systems or line rental on site. Instead, centralised telephony and communications services are hosted and located separately in two Irish data centres where Cisco’s latest virtualisation and unified communications technology has been installed,” comments Sonya McCourt, Three account director for Glanbia.

"Our model allows us either fully replace legacy TDM (or IP) systems or to integrate into an existing Cisco IP Telephony system. Three unified communications provides the opportunity to implement the latest communications and technology and move away from legacy systems without having to make large investments in equipment or licences."

Results

Following implementation of Three’s hosted unified communications Glanbia has seen a significant reduction in its telco costs. Inter branch calls throughout the country to both mobile and land lines are now included in the fixed monthly charge.

"But this is not just about cost but boosting customer service and the efficiency of the business," comments Nickey Brennan. "If a customer has a particular query, it can be routed to a specialist or expert in the appropriate branch without having to pay for the transfer call. Another benefit is caller line ID (CLI) which makes it easy and quicker to get back to a customer."

Single Number Reach is a great facility which boosts service and availability to customers. "An employee can take a call even if he or she is not at their desk but in the store or out in the yard."

Call transfer is another boon to the company’s productivity and service. "In smaller branches an individual may be away from the desk or out at lunch but the call can be routed in to a supporting branch or voicemail," comments Brennan. Another significant benefit is Three’s integrated support. truly integrated service with a single point of contact for mobile and fixed line so we don’t have to chase around different departments if we have any queries or issues,” says Brennan.

Brennan and the Agribusiness Division also like the fact that apart from reduction in overheads, its business telecommunications costs are fixed, no matter how busy the company gets. Because of the cloud computing model, Glanbia pays on the basis of a fixed monthly cost per user giving it certainty as well as access to the latest business telecommunications infrastructure with no cash draining upfront capital expenditure.

"The big wins for Glanbia were cost reduction, consolidation of services, improved connectivity and access to state of the art business telecommunications," adds Lisa Corcoran, head of business sales at Three. Reflecting Three’s capabilities as a total business communications provider, Glanbia has also installed Three’s fixed 10 MB Wireless Leased Line across eight locations including the main site in Ballyragget. This provides high level redundancy and back up.

Glanbia is also discovering the value of Three software offerings such as Blueclick.ie and Three Analyser. Blueclick.ie is a one stop cloud based portal that allows business customers and their approved employees interact online directly with Three. It is designed to cut the time spent having to manage and administer internal requests for new or replacement mobile phone products, accessories and services. Three Analyser gives businesses complete visibility of communications costs. "We have the technology, services, consultancy and implementatio to support companies right across their data and voice network," adds Sonya McCourt.

"As a company we are working to strip costs out of the business while maximising service to our customers," concludes Nickey Brennan. "Innovation is in our DNA and a core philosophy is to leverage all aspects of the latest technology to the fullest extent possible. Three is an important business partner in that programme."

Download our case study brochure here.