Speos

Speos is the market leader for document outsourcing in Belgium. Founded in 1985, and headquartered in Anderlecht, its customers include blue-chip organizations, multinationals, and institutions with operations in Belgium and beyond. The company’s subsidiary, Secumail, provides business continuity for document production in Merchtem through a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. Speos offers a full document management solution and is able to manage all aspects of outgoing document flow — from document creation to distribution — across all available channels.

“Ultimately, we had reached a point where we had to upgrade our infrastructure, so we took a thorough look at the solutions available on the market and evaluated a broad range of products, including offerings from large vendors as well as open-source phone systems.”
- Fabrice Vlassembrouck, Management Information Systems Manager, Speos.

When Speos’ previous analog telephone system reached its maximum capacity, with only limited enhancements or extensions possible, the management team decided to adopt a communications system that would help improve productivity. Specifically, the company was looking for the ability to manage additional remote workers, and it soon became clear that it was time to look beyond legacy telephony and plot a clear migration towards unified communications (UC). Speos also included its subsidiary, Secumail, in this deployment.

“The new solution had to be feature-rich, user friendly, cost effective, and future-proof. In particular, we were looking for the additional functionality afforded by VoIP, including easier call routing and management for remote workers, and the additional benefits around interactive voice response (IVR) that the previous solution wasn’t able to provide.”
- Fabrice Vlassembrouck, Management Information Systems Manager, Speos.

Speos already had a high-speed data connection between its two offices in Anderlecht and Merchtem, but was only using the fibre cable link for data traffic between the sites. This dedicated line, and the ability to run voice traffic over the same connection, were critical in the decision to implement a ShoreTel Unified Communications system. With now more than 100 IP phones installed, its centralized management capability has made the configuration and deployment of additional users and applications easier, quicker, and more intuitive. Other benefits include:

• The ShoreTel UC system facilitates flexible working spaces as calls are efficiently routed to employees at the location or device of their choice.
• Tight integration with Microsoft^® Outlook^® allows users to synchronize the phone system with their Outlook contacts, and manage all their communications through their PCs.
• N+1 redundancy and highly reliable ShoreTel Voice Switches ensure business continuity and support Speos’ disaster recovery plan.
• Significant cost savings achieved by routing internal calls over existing data network, eliminating toll charges.
• The system’s open, distributed architecture provides Speos with a scalable solution to which new sites and users can be easily added.

“The fact that we ultimately chose to go with ShoreTel speaks volumes about the advantages it holds over the competition and its ability to allow us to harness all the advantages of UC.”
- Fabrice Vlassembrouck, Management Information Systems Manager, Speos.