Skansen

Skansen was incorporated in 2001. The firm is an award-winning South East based office fit and refurbishment contractor, renowned for quality project delivery.

Skansen’s ability to deliver projects on time with minimal disruption is key to its success. They got in contact with Pescado in 2011 through a business referral. Pescado set about delivering a plan to enable Skansen to remove itself from its costly and unstructured mobile agreement and replace it with a more cost-effective and easier-to-manage alternative.

Title:
Workin together to deliver projects on time everytime

Date:
15/09/17

Category:
Mobile, Pescado Ola, IT Services, Connectivity, Office 365

The Vodafone mobile network was chosen after testing as the main voice and data network. With simpler tariffs and a significant hardware allocation graded for the different types of employee levels within the business, the phones were easy to manage and good value. As a growing business, having a structured and well managed mobile fleet meant it was easy to expand and modify.

New managing director Ian Pigden Bennett was impressed with the set up on mobiles and asked Pescado for a meeting to discuss some of the other technology challenges he faced within the business.

The Challenge

One of Skansen’s communication challenges was the need to get information quickly and reliably.

Refitting a working office whilst the business continued to operate from the premises always meant two workforces on site. Skansen employees would need access to send and receive large files for building works, but the ability to use infrastructure such as Wi-Fi was nearly always blocked by the end customer for security reasons.

The challenge was to give Skansen good reliable internet access on a temporary basis (from one to six months) allowing its employees to use email, download CAD drawings and make phone calls from Pescado’s OLA phone system for a fixed monthly price. The system needed to be deployed quickly and simply. Skansen had previously engaged with BT but its annualised agreements were too costly and slow to deploy.

The Solution

Pescado decided to use 4G Cradlepoint internet routers, so only a power source was necessary. Site testing for signal quality before deployment meant the appropriate network SIM could be placed into the high grade router.

Skansen office IT systems are now deployed and managed by Pescado’s IT department. As project managers and teams move to different working sites, it’s critical that items connect to office systems without delay. Pescado’s fully staffed support desk can monitor connections, system upgrades and answer users’ questions at any time of day, to ensure things run smoothly. The support team has visibility of the entire system from network SIM or fibre line to the end user’s laptop, so can quickly resolve problems and answer questions remotely.

Skansen themselves are moving their offices, but the challenge is that they may well move again in 12-18 months’ time. This causes significant issues , as typically leased lines are contracted for 36-60 months.

“Connectivity is key to us and when I was offered the chance to piggy back an existing leased line at our new offices, I wanted to investigate the solution for suitability”.

Ian’s Pescado Account Manager looked into the technical capacity that was critical to Skansen and spoke directly to the company to explore the opportunity further. After weighing up the pros and cons with Ian, it was decided to install a dedicated office leased line. Due to our strong supplier relationship, Pescado negotiated that that the line could be moved if Skansen relocated.

“One of the key benefits of working with a business like Pescado is that they can handle every side of technology our business needs. We are reliant on Pescado, whether it’s simple advice over a rugged phone for a site manager or a full SharePoint deployment, I make one call and the challenge is theirs. I deliberately outsourced the whole of our ICT support leaving me with a single point of contact rather than one supplier blaming another. Pescado look after our business because any issue is theirs to fix. They have the people, the knowledge and the processes to deliver for us and it has been a robust relationship built on openness and understanding.”

Chief Executive, Skansen Group Limited