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Regent’s College Case Study
Business Challenge:
• Install a new reliable, scalable and cost
effective solution
• Leverage existing data network
infrastructure
• Integrate seamlessly with existing PBX
telephone systems
• Ability to support remote workers and add
on applications in the future
• Support future growth of the college
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Communication Solutions:
• Mitel 3300 (ICP)
• Mitel Teleworker Solution
• Direct connect ISDN30
• Call routing
• Line rental
• Analogue lines
Altogether Better Results:
• College leveraged existing data
infrastructure by seamlessly integrating
voice on the network.
• Migrated an IP communication solution to
existing data network and PBX telephone
systems therefore protecting initial
investment
• Installed a next generation communication
system that provides a foundation to add
on applications to support ongoing growth
and five year business plan.
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Regent’s College adopts Flexible
Working
Regent’s College is a private federal institute situated in the beautiful Regent’s Park in central
London, only 15 minutes walk from the financial centre, the West End and many other
attractions in the city.
The college comprises four institutions of higher education: the British American College
London, the European Business School, the School of Psychotherapy and the Webster
Graduate School for American MA and MBA’s.
Home to 1,500 full time students representing over 106 nationalities and 600 staff, each
college operates as a separate entity; however, being located on the same campus, the
institutions share facilities and services such as HR, finance and administration.
“The Mitel IP solution was simple to work with
and easy to deploy. We started the migration
to IP over a weekend and the system was up
and running on the Monday morning ”
Planning for
expansion
The college recently unveiled an ambitious
five year growth plan, one of the key
elements of which was to double its
student intake.
With the extra demand this would place
on the college’s telecommunications
system, Regent’s College’s Head of IT,
David Elliott, began reviewing the existing
IT infrastructure and options to support
this expansion.
The team felt its existing Siemens PBX
telephone system had come to the end
of its life and could not accommodate the
increase in volume resulting from the
extra students, or add the necessary
applications to take the college into
the future.
Flexibility and
efficiency
The new IP communications system has
created a more flexible, effective and
efficient working environment for Regent’s
College, with employees no longer tied to
their desks. Staff can be in a different
department and log into a phone
anywhere on the campus and have access
to their personal voice mail, individual
phone settings and directories.
In turn, this enables employees to offer a
more responsive and comprehensive level
of service to students calling in to
the college.
Regent’s College is also advocating
flexible working with a number of staff now
able to work from home using the
Teleworker solution, which enables them
to access the same features and
functionality they use in the office.
The option of teleworking gives employees
the flexibility to achieve a work-life
balance and enables the college to
retain valuable members of staff who are
keen to work from home, which is
increasingly becoming an expectation
from today’s workforce.
Looking to the
future
As it continues to grow and strives to fulfil the goal of
its five year business plan, the Mitel Networked
Business Solution provides Regent’s College with the
option to add applications that will extend the
commercial benefits and add value to users.
For 2007, the college is considering unified
messaging as an option to help streamline messaging
for both staff and students – from supporting a single
mailbox to speech enabled access to voicemail, email
and fax. The system could be used to disseminate a
raft of information, including registrations, automated
course reminders and results.
Having just installed the 3Com data network, the
college was keen to maximise its investment and use
the same network for voice.
In order to find a suitable IP solution, the college
decided to conduct a thorough review of the market,
approaching eight voice and data resellers to put
forward their suggested solution. After a thorough
review of the benefits of each proposal, Telinet was
selected to implement a Mitel Networked Business
Solution.
Regent’s College
says:
“We wanted a robust telephone system that gave us
the flexibility to add on applications as we continue to
expand, such as teleworking and eventually unified
messaging. We knew that IP was the answer.
Telinet presented a cost-effective, tailored solution,
which perfectly met our requirements and fitted with
the college’s overall strategy and five-year plan.
Having worked with telinet on previous projects we
were impressed with the professionalism of the team
and the simplicity and ease of deployment of the Mitel
IP solution they suggested. The Mitel 3300 Integrated
Communications Platform (ICP) also provides us with
a high level of reliability and integrates seamlessly
with our existing data network.
The Mitel IP solution was simple to work with and easy
to deploy. We started the migration to IP over a
weekend and the system was up and running on the
Monday morning. With the Mitel Networked Business
Solution we’ve protected our existing investment by
not ripping out the Siemens PBX and being able to
migrate users over to IP at our own pace and of
course leverage the data network at the same time.
It’s already proving a very flexible and cost-effective
communications solutions.
In the past, the College’s network frequently went
down with moves, adds and changes - painful for the
IT team due to the sheer volume of extra work they
incurred. The Mitel network is considerably more
robust and reliable, allowing staff to simply move their
handset to a different desk, enter a pin number and
continue making calls; this has reduced the IT team’s
workload dramatically.
The Mitel 3300 Integrated Communications Platform
(ICP) also provides us with a high level of reliability
and integrates seamlessly with our existing data
network.”
Download the case study in PDF
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Telephone Systems
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IT Services
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