Case Study

Innocoll Pharmaceuticals operates its global financial, administration and sales headquarters in Athlone where it currently employs 10 people. It specialises in pharmaceutical products and medical devices using its proprietary collagen-based technologies. Quoted on NASDAQ, Innocoll operates its manufacturing centre in Germany.

The company was moving out of an Innovation Centre attached to the Athlone Institute of Technology to a new office. It needed to transfer its communications infrastructure with minimum or no downtime. In addition, it had an aging PBX which would require significant upfront capital expenditure to replace.The company also had employees based in the UK. The move was an excellent opportunity to review the communication needs of the business and to evaluate new, more cost-effective technologies and the possibility of supporting remote working for staff in the UK and Ireland.

Solution

Innocoll was already a Three fixed line and mobile customer. Its Three account manager recommended that the company consider 3Connect as an alternative to replacing its fixed assets and PBX.

Three’s IP telephony solution, 3Connect, eliminates the need for a traditional fixed line installation. Also known as VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or Hosted PBX, 3Connect brings your telephony requirements to the cloud.

3Connect enables businesses to use the internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls. This is facilitated by sending voice data in packets using IP rather than by circuit transmissions of the traditional PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network).

Results

“The move to Three’s cloud telephony solution resulted in an immediate upfront saving of €10,000 as we did not need to invest in a new PBX,” comments Turlough O’Connor, Corporate Controller, Innocoll.

This also eliminated the need for an ongoing PBX maintenance and support contract as Three provides all the necessary support and maintenance as part of the service.

Employee handsets connect to 3Connect across the internet, enabling remote working without long distance or landline call charges. They simply connect to a wi-fi network and can remain completely in-touch with the office.

“Our UK employee is now set up so we no longer have the cost of international calls between him and our Athlone office. 3Connect is a great way to facilitate remote or teleworking which is a boost to not only productivity but employee satisfaction and retention,” comments O’Connor.

From an aging and unreliable PBX, Innocoll has moved to a modern telecommunications platform that provides numerous productivity benefits. As well as remote working these include call forwarding (e.g. to their Three mobile), conferencing, personal numbering, usage analytics and call recording.

As an international financial centre, Innocoll staff often need to call banks or the Revenue. “Our former PBX could not handle 1890 calls so we were reverting to more costly mobile calls. The new cloud based system has no problem with 1890 numbers,” adds O’Connor. Innocoll was also able to bring its existing business numbers on to the 3Connect cloud platform.

Turlough O’Connor has “only good things to say” about the people and support he received from the team at Three. “There were teething problems in relation to hooking up to the local fibre broadband from a different provider, but Three took 100% responsibility to solve those problems. They never shied away. There was never a hint of ‘that’s not our responsibility’. Even down to little things they stuck with it to make sure everything was perfect.”

He adds, “Moving office is stressful at the best of times. Communication is the lifeline of your business. Making sure it works is a priority. The people at Three backed us all the way to make sure our move was a complete success.“