Fortis Guernsey invests in Mitel IP communications

Fortis Guernsey is an international financial services provider based in Guernsey, UK. It offers a range of services including investment management, trust and corporate services, wealth management and taxation services. Fortis ranks among the 20 largest financial institutions in Europe and has a presence in 50 countries worldwide. It employs 55,000 people globally, including over 250 employees at its Guernsey office.

Market assessment
Following the decision to relocate from its two existing sites to a greenfield site, Fortis Guernsey seized the opportunity to update its telephony system.

Richard McDermott head of ITC at Fortis Guernsey said, “With a blank canvas to work from we were presented with a fantastic opportunity to analyze exactly what we needed from our telecommunications infrastructure and consider all the options.We had specific objectives we needed to achieve and high expectations so the pressure was on to identify the best possible solution.”

Business continuity has always been a big issue in the financial services due to the sensitive information financial institutes hold and the large amount of money that is invested daily. This has been exacerbated in recent years with incidents such as, the fire at the Buncefield Oil Depot, coupled with the constant threat of terrorism and the risk of a pandemic.

Disaster strikes...
Fortis Guernsey wanted to invest in a solution that would not only streamline communications for staff but would also keep downtime to a minimum and provide the company with the resiliency it needed on a day-to-day basis.As part of its business continuity plan, Fortis Guernsey has turned one of the buildings it previously occupied into a disaster recovery site to enable staff to relocate to another site if the main site becomes unavailable.

Management
Another important consideration for the Fortis Guernsey team was the day-to-day management of its telecommunications system. Based on an island, the IT department needed to know that the technology they had invested in would allow them to make simple modifications themselves, such as adding and cancelling new users. However, it was also vital that if they needed external assistance an engineer would be close at hand.

With this in mind, Fortis Guernsey conducted a thorough market evaluation and considered a number of IP solutions based on the breadth of features, functionality, resiliency, and support.

The system Fortis Guernsey had previously used was not user-friendly and it lacked the support that the company required, so the decision was made to investigate other IP solutions available.

The technology exists
In line with the requirement for resilient telecommunications, they selected a Mitel® 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP) with redundant components. The redundant component on the platform functions as a back up so that if an element fails, the system will switch over to the redundant component, avoiding an outage.

McDermott said, “The Mitel IP solution with redundant components was the perfect solution. It did more than just tick the box from the business continuity perspective.With the Mitel solution we have a fully resilient communications system and also have the ability to make our disaster recovery site a reality with the hot desking feature allowing users to log in and continue working with all their personal user preferences.”

Having invested in a sophisticated IP solution, Fortis Guernsey decided to purchase new Mitel 5235 IP Phones for its entire workforce.

Fortis Guernsey also installed the Mitel Teleworker Solution to facilitate home and mobile working, enabling employees to log-on from any location and access all their personal features and functionality.A key component of Fortis Guernsey’s business continuity plan is that in an emergency the workforce can re-locate to the business continuity site and continue to work as though nothing has happened. Key staff can also work from home should an avian flu outbreak occur or any other pandemic.

The 3300 ICP also fulfilled Fortis Guernsey’s IT management requirements. The team needed a system that was easy to install, manage and operate so that they had control from a management perspective and would keep engineer call outs to a minimum. To further support the IT team and enable the simple configuration, control and management of Mitel’s enterprise product portfolio, Fortis Guernsey invested in Mitel Enterprise Manager. Using the application the IT team are able to access the system from a single interface, ultimately lowering business costs and increasing staff productivity.

Real business benefits
McDermott concluded, “As a result of the IP communications implementation we now have a resilient communications system that is a vital part of our business continuity plan.And, our staff have been able to enjoy real benefits from the increase in features and functions now available to them.”

Since the move to IP communications, Fortis Guernsey has dramatically improved its business continuity plan. The company now has a fully functioning secondary site and its workforce are able to work remotely if needed and the IP platform provides the resiliency required should it suffer an outage. Employees are also benefiting from a more streamlined efficient communications system and are taking advantage of the increased communications functionality available to them to improve customer service.