Risc Group

When it comes to providing outsourced computer services, Risc Group leads the industry for value and performance for more than 35,000 clients throughout Europe. Supported by local teams throughout its 32 offices in seven countries, the company offers network connections to customers as a service provider, and a complete range of software as a service (SaaS) solutions, including mobility, backup, network protection, video surveillance, facilities management, telecommunications, and applications in hosted mode.

“It is hard to estimate the exact amount of cost savings we’ve seen since deploying ShoreTel, however, I can say without doubt that the overall phone bill is now significantly lower.”
— Adrien Burnier, International Sales Support, Risc Group.

It is of utmost importance to Risc Group to have a reliable and quality phone system. Previously, Risc had used Escaux VoIP, which relied on an Internet connection and was susceptible to downtime whenever that connection failed. As the Risc Group’s aging phone system became increasingly unreliable, an office relocation proved to be the ideal opportunity to deploy a new phone system.

“The solution is easy to use and has required little special training. Risc Group now has total control of its phone system and rarely requires technical support from outside the company — a huge saving both in terms of cost and time wasted waiting for changes to be made.”
— Adrien Burnier, International Sales Support, Risc Group.

ShoreTel made the best offer in terms of price and quality — not just in upfront costs, but also in terms of its total cost of ownership. The group selected Zion Security, a Belgian ShoreTel partner, to install a ShoreTel Unified Communications (UC) system at the Risc Group Inbox offices in Brussels. The system includes several ShoreTel Voice Switches — models E1, 220E1, and 60 — plus 69 ShoreTel 230 IP Phones. ShoreTel Call Manager (now ShoreTel Communicator) provides employees with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface for managing their communications. Zion Telefonie also implemented a customised solution that uses the ShoreTel database to produce reports about callers’ activities and contacts to be made. This customised solution is integrated with an existing Web-based application for real-time reporting on agent performance. Other benefits include:

• Exceptional reliability helps ensure constant uptime, providing a highly available platform for high-quality and responsive customer support.
• Significant cost savings achieved through free internal calls and lower call rates between Risc Group sites.
• Ease of use for end-users and simplified management for IT staff led to a smooth migration to the new solution.
• The open, distributed system integrates easily with existing business applications, so Risc can seamlessly add at the Brussels office the same accounting software currently in use in the office in Spain.

“ShoreTel made the best offer in terms of price and quality — not just in upfront costs, but also in terms of its total cost of ownership.”
— Adrien Burnier, International Sales Support, Risc Group.