The NEC

The NEC Group has placed Birmingham on the map as one of the world’s elite cities for conferences, exhibitions and events. With five venues to choose from, the NEC Group has the capability to host and manage any public or trade event for any number of people. The National Indoor Arena ( NIA ), NEC Arena, NEC, Symphony Hall and the International Convention Centre (ICC) are all part of the NEC Group.

The Challenges

A communications infrastructure is important in every business but it’s critical to the NEC Group. With heavy reliance on the telephone system for bookings and enquiries, revenue, customer service and reputation rest on the performance of the telephone system.

The first challenge at the NEC was to find a solution that could support the strategic objectives of the business. A new box office was about to be launched to extend the booking capabilities of the group outside it’s own five venues and into other venues across the Midlands region. With three disparate ageing telephone systems from Ericsson, Rockwell and Alcatel-Lucent the existing infrastructure was not capable of supporting this requirement.

The second challenge was to reduce the cost of managing, maintaining and supporting 2,500 users across five sites. With so many employees dependent on the telephone system, a resilient and reliable solution was needed. These challenges presented the opportunity for the NEC Group to review their telephone system and contact centre solutions.