Saffery Champness Case Study

Saffery Champness (Saffery’s) is an independent top 20 firm of chartered accountants employing 400 staff in nine offices across the UK and in offices in Guernsey and Geneva. The firm had a business requirement to connect their offices to each other and to head office in the most efficient and cost effective way.  Speed of connection was also imperative because it centralised it’s data and applications and needed to maintain speed of delivery.  It was looking for a solution from a single supplier that could bring the whole organisation together and provide timely services to its client base irrespective of whether the users were on its local area network (LAN) in London or any of its satellite offices.  And it chose Convergence Group to deliver this service since early 2009. Convergence Group helped Saffery’s change the technology delivering their data services to provide them with a much faster data service, and also ensured that the new, improved service delivered significant /long term cost savings to the company.

But it wasn’t only the technical and financial advantages that made Convergence Group Saffery’s supplier of choice; it was the customer service that set Convergence Group apart from its competitors.  Mark Butcher ‘Saffery’s IT Technical manager explains, “The team from Convergence Group was in regular communication with us throughout the whole process.  They explained how changes in technology would benefit us, allowing us to make strategic decisions and plan the upgrades that we needed throughout the organisation. And they kept us informed during the set up phase. This personal approach made sorting out after sales issues much easier compared to dealing with some of the larger suppliers”.

The solution Convergence Group offered comprised high speed Ethernet circuits to provide Saffery’s with a wide area network (WAN).  In addition, Convergence Group provided the company with a centralised internet breakout service through its core network, for all of the UK sites.

The key differentiator was the customer service - ongoing communications, progress updates and notifying Saffery’s about new technologies allowed it to make the best networking choices about its WAN communications and stay at the forefront of emerging technology.  Convergence Group also provided a temporary Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution while MPLS was implemented to alleviate pressure from a firebox which was causing a bottleneck.  This flexible approach was something larger providers did not offer.

Since becoming a Convergence Group customer, Saffery’s sites and staff have high speed access to all data services.  All internet traffic is now provided centrally, allowing the IT team to control the firewall for the whole organisation from a central point.

There were a couple of challenges during implementation, but these were handled transparently by Convergence Group working with Saffery’s IT team.  Provisioning and project management staff were always available and reacted swiftly to help supply services and meet Saffery’s business needs.  The biggest problem was a way leave issue that rumbled on for months.  Cabling was running through another company in the same building as one of the Saffery’s offices and Convergence Group staff helped apply pressure and keep on top of the issues as well as keeping communications flowing between both parties involved.

“As an organisation, we provide accountancy services throughout the UK and making sure that the partners anywhere in the country had access to the same services was essential,” comments Mark. “The high speed network has allowed us to provide this service across the board and has also given us the resilience we need to support our data network from a central location.  Since the original implementation, we have upgraded to version two of a Convergence Group network, allowing us to take advantage of the latest Ethernet technology.  And it’s saved us money again.  We can now provide a fast, reliable network to our remote sites and save our practices infrastructure costs.”

“The service desk is accessible morning or night and are there to sort out any issues that arise on the network.  We see our account manager regularly and have regular service reviews where we discuss our future business needs and plan together how our data services need to develop.  It’s that personable approach that sets Convergence Group apart.  Knowing there is someone you can talk to about anything to do with the network at any time takes a lot of the hassle out of the working relationship and is something you just don’t get from the larger carriers. Convergence Group continues to provide the most appropriate solution on the market that suits our business needs and gives us ‘more bang for our buck’”.

Convergence Group designs, builds and fully manages public and private data networks for UK businesses with more than two locations that need their IT, computer systems and people to communicate with each other and provides these services direct to customers as well as for wholesale and channel markets in the UK.”