The agri-business division of Glanbia, the global performance nutrition and ingredients group, has signed a hosted unified communications deal with O2.
The contract involves O2 providing Glanbia with a combined fixed and mobile telecommunications solution across 240 users in more than 50 sites.
One immediate impact will be the reduction of Glanbia’s call costs with the removal of charges for inter branch calls now carried for free across an IP network as well as significantly reduced line rental charges.
The service is delivered as part of O2’s cloud-based hosted unified communications platform, which eliminates the need for organisations to invest in expensive PBX systems or pay for line rental onsite. The service is instead charged on the basis of a monthly rental per user.
“This is not just about cost cutting but business efficiency,” commented Nickey Brennan, group purchasing manager, business services and IT at Glanbia. “We are always looking to leverage the latest technology to streamline our business and maximise service to customers. Initial consultancy from O2 helped us to identify the right solution for our business needs. We now have a much more integrated communications system between our 50 plus branches and staff on the road, with the ability to transfer calls to experts in branches countrywide at no additional cost.
“The big wins for Glanbia were cost reduction, consolidation of services, improved connectivity, access to state of the art business telecommunications and no up front capital expenditure,” added Lisa Corcoran, head of business sales at O2.
Reflecting O2’s capabilities as a total business communications provider, Glanbia has also installed O2’s fixed 10 MB wireless leased line across eight locations including the main site in Ballyragget, County Kilkenny. This provides high level redundancy and back up.
“As a company we are working to strip costs out of the business while maximising service to our customers,” concludes Glanbia’s Brennan. “Innovation is in our DNA and a core philosophy is to leverage all aspects of the latest technology to the fullest extent possible. This deal with O2 allows us to do just that.”
