Client: Leading Global Recruitment Agency
Industry: HR & Staffing
Location: London, United Kingdom
Partnership Since: 2024
Background
A global recruitment organisation with a worldwide branch network appointed Amillan to guide its digital transformation and provide ongoing managed services, ensuring a smooth and successful transition across its operation.
This agency is known for placing tens of thousands of candidates every year across a wide variety of sectors. Their communication estate plays a critical role in coordinating activities across branch locations, field teams, central support staff, and job candidates.
Following a review of their voice strategy, they identified Microsoft Teams as their strategic platform for collaboration and telephony — but needed a partner to not only design and deploy the solution but also proactively manage it as a service.
The Challenge
As this organisation rapidly scaled digital communications during and after the pandemic, it faced several key operational and technical challenges:
With no appetite for heavy internal resourcing they sought a fully managed solution that could integrate Microsoft Teams voice with robust security and transparent reporting.
The Amillan Solution
Amillan proposed and delivered a fully managed Microsoft Teams Unified Communications solution, combining:
Benefits Delivered
Benefit Outcome
Unified platform All voice collaboration functions consolidated into Microsoft Teams
Fully managed No internal burden on IT for telephony or Ribbon SBC operations
Improved visibility Clobba dashboards & reports provide daily insight into performance
Scalable architecture New branches and users can be added in hours, not days
Reliable and secure With a Ribbon SBC ensuring resilient, compliant voice routing
Enhanced productivity Reduced call wait times and improved call handling metrics
Now benefiting from a modern, secure, and intelligent voice estate — delivered entirely as a service.
Customer Testimonials
“With Amillan, we don’t just have a supplier — we have a long-term partner. Their managed Teams telephony service gives us the performance and reliability we need without the complexity. We trust them to run and evolve this for us, while we focus on doing what we do best — recruitment.” States, Head of IT, Leading Recruitment Company
“We designed this solution to do more than just connect calls — it empowers this leading recruiter with complete control, visibility, and future scalability. Our managed service wraps technology in real accountability, and we’re proud to support such a respected UK brand.” Said Kevin Lee, Sales Director, Amillan.
Future Plans
Amillan will continue to work together on additional innovations, including:
Generative and Conversational AI solutions for Virtual Agents
Summary
Amillan’s managed service has provided:
By offloading technical complexity and embracing a strategic managed model, Amillan have transformed voice into a platform for operational excellence and customer service leadership.
Client: Zoological Society of London
Industry: Museum and Cultural Institution
Location: London, United Kingdom
Partnership Since: 2021
Background
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a world-renowned conservation charity that operates London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo. As two of the UK’s most iconic zoological sites, they attract millions of visitors each year and require robust, high-performance network infrastructure to support their operations, research, and guest experience.
To ensure seamless digital connectivity across both sites, Amillan has been ZSL’s trusted Managed Service Provider (MSP), delivering critical network infrastructure, data switching, and WiFi solutions that enable smooth day-to-day operations.
Quote from Kevin Lee, Sales Director.
“At Amillan, we are committed to working in true partnership with our customers, collaborating to transform business solutions that meet the ever-evolving demands of today’s dynamic marketplace. Our partnership with ZSL reflects this dedication—driving innovation, efficiency, and sustainable success.”
Challenge
Managing two large, complex zoo environments presents unique challenges:
Expansive Sites: Both London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo cover vast areas, requiring reliable wireless coverage across multiple enclosures, buildings, and visitor zones.
High-Density Usage: The network must support thousands of daily visitors, staff, researchers, and operational systems without interruptions.
Mission-Critical Operations: Secure and stable connectivity is essential for ticketing, retail, visitor engagement, and research activities.
Legacy Infrastructure: Upgrading and integrating modern network solutions with existing infrastructure while minimising disruption.
Solution
As ZSL’s managed service provider, Amillan delivered a comprehensive network infrastructure transformation, ensuring seamless connectivity across both estates.
Quote from Carl Jephcote, Infastructure Lead, ZSL.
“Amillan has been instrumental in transforming our network infrastructure across both London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo. Their expertise and proactive support have enabled us to deliver a seamless digital experience for our visitors and staff, while also supporting our critical research and conservation efforts. It’s a partnership that continues to add real value to our mission.”
Key Solutions & Services Provided:
Enterprise-Grade Network Infrastructure – Deployment of high-performance data switches to enhance network resilience and efficiency.
Advanced WiFi Solutions – Installation of strategically placed access points to deliver seamless, high-speed wireless coverage across both zoo locations.
Scalability & Future-Proofing – Infrastructure designed to support ZSL’s evolving digital needs, including visitor engagement initiatives, research projects, and operational enhancements.
Ongoing Managed Services & Support – Continuous monitoring, maintenance, and support to ensure maximum uptime and reliability.
Results:
Through Amillan’s expertise, ZSL has significantly improved communications, network performance, visitor communications, experience, and operational efficiency across both London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo.
Better Communications – Better Communications: Enhanced internal and external collaboration, leading to improved customer communications, a better visitor experience, and a more positive employee environment.
Enhanced Visitor Engagement – Reliable WiFi access for guests supports mobile ticketing, interactive zoo experiences, and social media sharing.
Improved Research & Conservation Efforts – Secure and stable network infrastructure facilitates digital research, data collection, and collaboration.
Optimised Operations– Seamless connectivity for staff communications, point-of-sale systems, and administrative functions.
Future-Ready Connectivity – A scalable infrastructure that will support ZSL’s ongoing digital transformation and conservation initiatives.
Conclusion
Amillan’s strategic partnership with ZSL has transformed connectivity at London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo, enabling a smarter, more connected environment for visitors, staff, and conservation teams. As a trusted technology partner, Amillan continues to support ZSL’s mission by providing cutting-edge network solutions that power education, research, and world-leading wildlife conservation.
Client: A Leading Museum and Cultural Institution
Industry: Museum and Cultural Institution
Location: London, United Kingdom
Partnership Since: 2021
Background
Our client is one of the world’s largest museums of decorative arts and design. Located in London, this prestigious institution boasts a vast collection of over 2.3 million objects, spanning 5,000 years of human creativity. The museum is renowned for its historic architecture and cultural significance.
Challenge
Our partnership with the museum involves providing specialised support for the wired and wireless network infrastructure, contact centre, and unified communications solutions. We have facilitated the transition from legacy collaboration platforms and voice solutions to an upgraded internal infrastructure, which underpins the introduction of new cloud solutions.
This transformation has modernised the museum into a contemporary workplace while preserving the historic integrity of its buildings, which are renowned for their architectural significance. Working with such a prestigious client requires a deep understanding of the physical constraints and expansive environment of the museum.
Despite these challenges, we deliver premium service support, along with first-class hardware and software solutions, ensuring the museum remains a leading-edge organisation in the 21st century.
Solution
Amillan partnered with the museum to provide consultation, implementation, and ongoing comprehensive managed-service support across the wired and wireless network, contact centre, and unified communications solutions. The key aspects of the overall solution included:
Results
The partnership between Amillan and the museum has successfully transformed the museum’s multiple sites into a modern workplace while maintaining its historic place as a leading design and art institution.
Key outcomes include:
‣ Enhanced Collaboration: Improved communication and collaboration among staff through upgraded systems.
‣ Reliable Connectivity: Stable and efficient network infrastructure supporting the museum’s operations.
‣ Future-Ready Solutions: A scalable and flexible infrastructure ready to support future technological advancements.
Conclusion
Working with the museum has been a testament to Amillan’s ability to deliver premium professional service support and cutting-edge solutions in challenging environments. The successful modernisation of the museum’s infrastructure highlights Amillan’s commitment to excellence and innovation.
The University of Sunderland (UoS) has a student FTE count of over 24,000 based across campuses in Sunderland, London and Hong Kong, and, in addition, UoS has many partnerships with learning institutions in various countries around the globe, extending its global teaching reach. Sunderland is recognised internationally as a leading, digital-first university, with a long-established commitment to widening participation, world-leading research, public and private sector collaborations, and a proven track record of providing quality student experiences.
To underpin their digital-first agenda, the university adopted a cloud-first strategy, focusing on leveraging key skillsets offered by managed service providers to align activities that underpin core operational infrastructure. This allows UoS to be more digitally transformational, adding greater value to the University and its customers.
To tie in with this strategy, UoS decided to scale out its current investment within O365 and migrate telephony to a single unified communications platform, accessible from anywhere in the world, further supporting the aim to move away from data centres and an on-premise footprint.
In early 2021 the University began seeking a supplier to fully manage and support the design, implementation and migration of staff from their current telephony services to a hosted Microsoft Teams for telephony service. UoS’s telephony environment at the time was a mixture of Skype for Business and Astra MX1, with smaller legacy PBX systems also on-site in London and Hong Kong campuses. The Microsoft Teams app was used by the University, but for collaboration, and meetings only.
The university conducted a procurement process via CCS’s RM3808 Network Services 2. After an extensive review of the marketplace, they made the decision to partner with communications specialist Amillan for this project. Amillan is a communications integrator with over 30 years’ experience in enterprise voice technology, holding Microsoft’s Communication competency for 15 years. Amillan supports a number of other UK universities with their voice infrastructure, and it was decided they were the best fit to support the University in this digital transformation.
The Solution
Amillan’s solution provides the University of Sunderland with a Cloud based Telephony Platform delivered from a Private Cloud which hosts Session Border Controller’s, PSTN SIP Trunks and for the migration phases, SIP Integration to the existing On-Premise Skype for Business deployment. Session Border Controllers are configured in a resilient configuration to provide Microsoft Direct Routing towards the University of Sunderland’s M365 Tenant. Amillan’s Direct Routing provides the Teams application with PSTN capabilities for all incoming and outgoing calls.
In the Amillan Data Centre, GAMMA SIP Trunks are provided in the form of Active / Standby. This provides the University of Sunderland with a resilient PSTN service from the GAMMA Public SIP Infrastructure. All DDI Numbers were be ported to the new GAMMA SIP Service. These SIP Trunks and DDI Numbers are presented to Amillan’s Session Border Controllers which are also working in Active Standby mode. The SBC’s send the DDI to the end user via Direct Routing into Microsoft’s M365 architecture, delivering “Dial Tone” into the Teams users.
Like all Universities, UoS required extra SIP Channel Capacity during the annual clearing period. Amillan’s solution has been built with the high clearing capacity in mind, however with the Gamma Portal the University can change the channel count instantly, meaning that outside of clearing the University can scale down the SIP Trunks from the Gamma network, only paying for what is required, meaning no wasted expenditure.
Due to the covid 19 pandemic and the immediate shift to home working, many university staff were already utilising teams for internal calling and Skype for Business for external calls, this made the transition to teams for all telephony significantly easier with regards to change management and user adaption. All staff already had the appropriate equipment to allow them to work in agile way from home or when on campus with laptops and headsets, and the project included replacing physical handsets with Teams compatible alternatives where required. This in itself was a remarkable achievement for the University and for Amillan, as the rollout and the configuration of Yealink Teams handsets was a first for both. In addition, there are several communal analogue devices (e.g. corridor phones) which needed to be migrated to SIP as part of the overall design consideration. Amillan connected these endpoints to a SIP to Analogue convertor to provide a DDI and dial tone for this service.
Amillan fully managed the on-boarding procedure for the UK and Hong Kong sites to enable all campuses for Teams Telephony. A risk adverse approach was followed where Amillan connected to the on-site topology using Public IP Addresses from both the University of Sunderland and the Amillan data centre, allowing for a phased migration of users from Skype for Business to Teams, avoiding a “big bang” approach, resulting in a seamless and disruption free transition of services.
Following the successful upgrade to Microsoft Teams, Amillan now fully manages and supports the service for the University, with Amillan’s Service Centre and engineering resource supplementing UoS’s in-house skills. This includes Amillan having agent access to the University’s IT Service Desk, meaning any ticket that is submitted for telephony is sent to Amillan to resolve and close seamlessly.
Client Testimonials
“The upgrade to Teams for the University’s telephony is an important step forward for our Digital First agenda, providing staff with simplified communication and collaboration platform wherever they are in the world. Amillan’s management of the transition has been first-class with a true desire to understand our organisation needs and become a valued partner moving forward.” Jason Marshall IT Service Manager, University of Sunderland.
“We admire the University’s forward-thinking drive to invest in technologies which improve experiences for staff and students. We hope that this project will be the start of a long-term partnership between both organisations. ” _ – Quote – Patrick Daly Managing Director, Amillan.
“Delivering better value from every interaction” – How the Enghouse contact centre platform has helped ForHousing provide an enhanced service to tenants
Social housing provider, ForHousing, owns and manages 24,000 homes in North-West England, and delivers housing management services for other landlords. Part of the ForViva Group, they are focused on improving lives for their communities, customers, and staff, along with delivering affordable accommodation for their tenants.
ForHousing are passionate about the service they provide to their tenants. Back in 2016, most of their customer interactions were predominately voice-based. With calls on the rise ForHousing wanted a scalable “single pane of glass” solution which would integrate with critical business applications and support new digital channels, such as webchat, emails and social media to relieve the pressure on call handlers and resolve tenants’ queries more quickly and efficiently.
Angela Worthington, Group Assistant Director of Customer Experience, ForViva (parent company of ForHousing) said: “We also wanted to support additional capabilities including skills-based call-routing, and the ability to take card payments and not record, which together would allow us to offer an even more efficient service to our tenants.”
Their existing contact centre solution did not offer the functionality needed to support this new initiative. It was also inflexible when it came to making small changes to the system such as rerouting calls or putting a recorded message in place. Each new request had to be submitted to the IT team which made it difficult to be react to anything.
ForHousing decided to go out to tender to find a solution that could deliver on their requirements.
The Solution
Working with their IT partner, Amillan, they selected the Enghouse Interactive Communications Center (CC) solution. CC provides multi-channel capability, giving tenants greater choice in how they engage with ForHousing. To complement CC, ForHousing also implemented the Enghouse Interactive Quality Management suite (QMS), including call recording and score card functionality to monitor agents performance, and the Teleopti workforce management tool.
The initial Customer Service Centre implementation had around 40 users. With CC in place, Amillan has helped ForViva bring onboard over 100 additional users and extend the use of multimedia throughout when it bought Liberty Group, scaling CC to accommodate this growth. ForViva was quick to see positive results.
Reaping the rewards
One of the advantages of choosing Enghouse as its contact centre provider was the range of solutions it had to offer. Previously, ForHousing had multiple customer-facing solutions in place from different suppliers. By standardising on CC, it was able to utilise other applications such as their web-based Wallboard. This meant that agents had full visibility of performance data and call queue status no matter where they set up work for the day.
ForHousing also benefits from Call-back functionality. When call volumes are high and it is difficult to get through to an agent, tenants can now request a call back. This has helped to increase customer satisfaction as they no longer have to wait around in a queue, but it has also contributed to increased agent productivity and improved call centre efficiency.
The new solution also integrates with their CRM solution, Aareon. This gives agents instant access to more detailed information about their residents, enabling them to make more informed decisions and has resulted in increased first contact resolution.
Moreover, with the previous contact centre solution in place, it had been difficult to on board new users or support people working from home. With CC, it was possible to mobilise the contact centre team, with no disruption to service. It was easy to train people; add new users, route calls and set up new queues. The solution also offered ForHousing greater flexibility during lockdown. Some agents had to home school making it difficult for them to take calls, but using CC, ForHousing were able to allow them to focus on email instead.
Challenges in the management and processing of calls were also addressed by CC’s call recording capability. The system was PCI compliant as it automatically paused and resumed recordings when agents were taking card details. Screen and call recording along with score card functionality enables Team Leaders to access agents in a fair and consistent fashion. This has helped increase agent morale, reduce staff attrition, and improve the customer experience.
“Over the last year the Team Leader’s role has changed significantly”, added Angela. “With their teams now working from home they have lost that face-to-face contact and the ability to offer support when they can see an agent struggling. The Quality Management Suite has been invaluable during this time, allowing team leaders to monitor activity and intervene when an agent needs help.
“We also have greater visibility of the types of calls we receive, enabling us to spot any trends in the nature of enquiries, or provide evidence of any burning issues or repair complaints that may need actioning. And with the integrated survey module we can get a full picture of the customer experience”.
Chatbots and automation – Extending the benefits of the contact centre
ForHousing wanted to bring more automation into the contact centre and extend their hours to offer a 24/7 service to its customers. Working with Amillan they selected Converse360 to provide a service automation platform that can deliver web bots, speech bots and virtual assistants, all seamlessly integrated with CC.
The virtual assistant feature has been invaluable in taking pressure off the contact centre through the pandemic. Also, if the interaction with the virtual assistant needs to be passed through to the contact centre the details are automatically passed onto the agent so that they have a full history.
The virtual assistant is now handling around 60% of the chats that come through the ForHousing website and they have seen a 26% uplift in the number of monthly web chat sessions, within three months of it going live. The average handling time for live chat has gone down by around 90 seconds per session as a result.
With the virtual assistant dealing with many of the simpler interactions ForHousing can devote more time to calls coming through the Enghouse CC and has therefore improved its first call resolution rate. At the same time, agents can deliver an enhanced experience to tenants.
Reporting and management has also been transformed. ForHousing now have full “cradle to grave” reporting across all customer interaction types, whether it is the virtual assistance, voice or social media channels. This has provided greater insight into contact centre performance which in turn has helped drive down costs.
Delivering an exceptional tenant experience
Angela said: “It is not just about housing anymore. It is about improving lives and creating communities that grow and in which people are happy and want to live in. Equally, it is no longer just about tenants phoning up to pay their rent or report a repair. Calls are becoming much longer. Our average handle time has increased 10-25% in time terms because tenants have more complex needs, but thanks to the virtual assistant and the Enghouse Interactive CC, our agents are able to spend more time with them and add greater value to each interaction.”
Angela added: “We have found CC flexible and easy to adjust. We can now open the contact centre outside office hours and bring staff working from home online to deal with queries whenever we need them. Also the flexibility of the solution has made it easier to bring on new lines for specific functions, such as pharmacy calls during lockdown, and simpler to route calls to specific experts, as and when required.”
Over the longer-term, ForHousing is confident in the ability of the contact centre platform to deliver sustained benefits. The association is looking at moving away from on-premise solutions towards a cloud-based platform and it recognises the potential this offers in enabling it to make use of the data and analytics it has at its disposal to offer an even better service to tenants.
ForHousing is a forward-thinking social organisation whose members own and manage more than 24,000 homes across the North West.
ForHousing is about improving lives for communities, customers, and staff, delivering excellent quality, affordable accommodation, and housing services across the region.
Committed to creating positive opportunities for its customers, ForHousing build much needed affordable homes, empower people to gain training, secure employment, whilst also providing access to health and wellbeing support, creating sustainable and safe communities.
Amillan have worked closely with ForHousing (and the wider ForViva Group) since the introduction of a new multichannel contact centre platform in 2016 and have become a valuable technology partner, helping them in delivering their commitments to provide high customer satisfaction. In 2019 Amillan began a partnership with Converse360 who offer an innovative virtual assistant solution built upon an industry leading service automation platform.
The Challenge
ForHousing were looking to reduce costs within their current contact centre solution whilst also maintaining and increasing customer satisfaction for their tenants. They have a customer service team that are extremely busy, with most tenant interactions provided through a manual process. This meant agents were handling thousands of incoming voice calls, email enquiries and webchat sessions every month, with the number of interactions continually increasing due to the pressures of Covid-19.
ForHousing have always strived to improve how they communicate with their tenants by utilising the latest digital communication technology, they recognized these technologies could help uncover more efficient ways of delivering their current services, streamline processes and reduce costs.
As with most Housing Associations, voice is still the media platform of choice, however this meant only limited services could be offered to tenants at night or at weekends. ForHousing wanted to continue offering voice but also promote new media channels such as Web Chat and expansion into social media. Providing additional channels would allow many tenants to perform self service, which after extensive research they concluded could easily handle simple questions and by following workflows they could even provide interactive responses for more in-depth processes.
ForHousing were looking for automation which could deliver the following benefits:
ForHousing recognised that the key to providing this service successfully is avoid creating a technology silo, the automation needed to integrate with wider business and communications environment (Housing Management Systems, CRM, Contact Centre) and be able to communicate across all media channels that the audience require.
The Solution
ForHousing engaged Amillan as their contact centre partner of choice, to assist with the automation project. Amillan worked with Converse360 to provide a Service Automation Platform that can deliver Web Bots, Speech Bots and Digital Humans, seamlessly integrating with the Enghouse Interactive Contact Centre Platform which was already used at ForHousing.
It was proposed to set up a dedicated Cloud based instance of this platform for an initial period of 12 months which will provide the evidence required to show the cost savings achievable whilst improving excellent customer service standards for ForHousing’s tenants. This period would also allow ForHousing to plan for the expansion of services, with potential integration into housing management and other CRM or knowledge-based systems.
The Implementation
Following acceptance of the proposal ForHousing were extremely keen to progress the solution as quickly as possible and wanted to be fully involved in building the FAQ’s and Workflows for the solution. Amillan provided ForHousing with extensive user training, split over several sessions, thus making sure the ForHousing staff had the knowledge, ability, and tools to be self-sufficient to build new FAQ’s and Workflows.
The platform is based on embeds technology from the four leading conversational AI vendors; AWS, Google, IBM Watson and Microsoft, therefore if ForHousing’s requirements evolve going forward, the “Best of Breed” solution can pivot to meet the new requirements.
The training was also followed by a workshop to gather in greater detail the ForHousing requirements around colour schemes, company branding, opening, and closing statements and the general design for the ForHousing Web Bot. The name and design of the Web Bot was devised through tenant consultation and the tenants voted to call the Bot “Zippy” to give a friendly, more personable public persona to the Bot.
The Solution
ForHousing created most of the FAQ’s and Workflows for Zippy themselves, utilising the Contact Centre team to build them. The feedback from ForHousing was that process was very easy, enabling self-sufficiency with Amillan and Converse360’s technical team on hand to assist if required. ForHousing found the Bot solution easy to build and only needed to involve the IT Department when Zippy was ready to Go Live and a simple line of code was added to ForHousing’s Web Page.
The workflows that ForHousing built cover:
Testing
A testing instance of Zippy which was identical to the final solution was provided during implementation, this allowed ForHousing to review the look and feel before go-live. Testing itself took a couple of weeks, making sure the workflows functioned correctly and adjusting them where necessary.
The Launch
Zippy’s Go Live was on the 19th October and tenants began embracing the Web Bot’s features instantly.
Zippy has been trained to respond to enquiries across a range of topics and there are multiple workflows where the questions asked lead to additional detailed information being requested before responding.
ForHousing wanted to reduce the number of routine FAQ calls which come through from tenants to the Contact Centre and as such would point the tenants to Zippy for self-service.
ForHousing also wanted to reduce agent chat time, so when an enquiry does get through to an agent, Zippy has gathered all the relevant information and able to transfer this to the live agent, when required.
Zippy can offer the tenant the option to speak to a customer advisor at any time and should the Virtual Assistant not understand the tenants request, then Zippy will hand-off to a Live Agent to continue the conversation. If the tenant clicks the agent button the system will engage with the Contact Centre, which will look at agent availability, advise the tenant of the estimated wait time and route the chat to a live agent.
In the first week Zippy had:
The Benefits
Now Zippy has had time to ‘bed in’ the statistics are surpassing all expectations.
A review of the monthly statistics are as follows:
Summary of Statistics
Total Time Saved every month equates to 391 Hours or 52 Days or 2.6 Agents
The statistics show that Zippy is answering most tenants’ questions without agent involvement. As the Web Bot is being constantly trained by the ForHousing staff, Zippy will be able to answer even more questions in the future.
The Future
ForHousing have already seen the benefits of the Web Bot solution deployed, providing potential cost savings as well as the increase in customer satisfaction.
ForHousing, Amillan and Converse360 are looking to expand Zippy into Phase Two, with integration into Aareon QL, ForHousing’s housing management system. This would mean that tenants could use the Web Bot to:
ForHousing continue to seek new ways to innovate and improve their customer service with communication and automation technology. A Speech Bot version of Zippy is being considered to intelligently automate voice responses by phone. Also, ForHousing are considering other add-ons for both Web and Speech, such as the customer survey feature.
About Yorkshire Housing
The Yorkshire Housing group was formed in 1999 and became Yorkshire Housing in 2008. Today they manage more than 18,000 affordable and social rent homes across 20 local authorities. They are a not-for-profit organisation, meaning all earnings are re-invested into the services provided.
Yorkshire Housing’s ambition is for everyone to have the opportunity to live in a quality home they can afford. To do this they are growing as a business, building 3,000 homes by 2021 and increasing the range of services available.
Yorkshire Housing had taken the decision to move 250 staff to a new central location, with the focus on increasing customer service, whilst boosting staff productivity and efficiency.
The Solution
Amillan was chosen to supply Yorkshire Housing with a Unified Communications and IP telephony solution for it’s new ‘Corporate Centre’ location in Leeds, together with a new cabling and data network infrastructure as part of a wider technology roll-out. This encompassed five additional office locations and numerous satellite offices across Yorkshire.
The unified communications solution provided Yorkshire Housing with advanced presence capabilities – knowing who is available to handle enquiries or to call-out to sites, skills-based routing to transfer calls to the most appropriate person, collaboration, conferencing, and mobility for its workforce meaning that staff were able to be contacted whether in the office, at a satellite location or working remotely.
“A key factor in the success of the project has been Amillan’s precise and encompassing project management. The fact that one company has been able to provide all aspects of the solution for Yorkshire Housing Ltd has made the whole installation much more straightforward, combined with its ability to carefully manage not only their own installation but to have provided co-ordination with third parties too. This has proved invaluable, and we are delighted with the project.”
Unified Communications – Lyons Seafoods
By Amillan Limted, Your Trusted Managed Services Provider
About the Client
Lyons Seafoods is one of the UKʼs leading suppliers of prawns and chilled seafood, operating from two key production sites and employing approximately 300 staff.
Renowned for their commitment to sustainability and responsible sourcing, Lyons plays a vital role in the UKʼs food manufacturing and retail supply chain. Amillan has extensive experience working in the manufacturing vertical, with deep understanding of the sector’s specific communication challenges and operational requirements.
The Challenge
Lyons Seafoods operated with an ageing telephony infrastructure that was increasingly unreliable and difficult to manage. Poor Wi-Fi coverage in production areas hindered communication, and there was a clear need to unify all sites under a single, modern communications framework that could support operational agility and future
digital initiatives.
The Amillan Solution
Amillan delivered a complete Unified Communications transformation across Lyons Seafoodsʼ UK operations. This included Microsoft Teams with Direct Routing, improved network infrastructure with extended Wi-Fi coverage into production zones, and full migration support from legacy systems.
Amillan also provides 24×7 remote maintenance support for the Cisco LAN systems installed across all sites, including PTRG network monitoring and proactive engineering support. In addition, Amillan has carried out extensive copper and fibre optic cabling solutions across Lyons Seafoods sites to support their communications and manufacturing systems. This project was delivered in collaboration with Quiss Technology, which provided additional support for infrastructure and desktop integration across the production sites.
Benefits Delivered
Customer Testimonials
“Amillan helped us replace outdated systems with a future-ready communications platform. Their experience in manufacturing, combined with collaboration from Quiss Technology, made the project seamless from planning through to support.”
— Quote from Marco Nice, Head of IT Infrastructure, Operations & Applications and Development, Lyons Seafoods
“Lyons Seafoods needed more than just a technical upgrade—they needed a partner who understands the pace and challenges of food manufacturing. Weʼre proud to deliver a solution that enhances productivity from the office to the factory floor.”
— Quote from Stuart Taylor, Account Director, Amillan
About Perenco
Perenco is Europe’s first independent oil and gas company, with a worldwide portfolio of assets resulting from a unique know-how in the operation of mature fields and from an ambitious acquisition strategy.
Since Perenco was founded in 1975, the company has diversified to become the leading independent oil and gas company in Europe today. The company produces 465,000 BOEPD through its drilling, development and operations, thanks to its onshore and offshore presence in 14 countries.
Perenco’s objectives presented a unique challenge for Amillan, due to the company requiring IP telephony for offshore locations in the North Sea, where Perenco is a leading operator processing almost 15% of the UK national gas production.
The Solution
Amillan we’re initially given the opportunity to implement it’s cost-effective and high-quality annual Maintenance and Support contract for four Perenco sites across the UK. The contract consisted of services such as Problem & Incident Management, Reporting, Field Engineering, 24/7 telephone assistance and much more.
After the effectiveness of the Maintenance and Support contract, Amillan were selected to further provide upgrades to three of its offshore locations, replacing the current ageing systems with a new hybrid telephony platform. This provided native support for digital, analogue, IP, SIP desk phones to preserve phone, cabling and network investments.
The solution provided was completely modular and resilient to address the evolution of daily business, as well as the ability to expand capacity or add additional features and applications in the future. This also addressed the limitations of a restricted environment, allowing for a fully VoIP solution, or to install Analog and Digital telephony.
Amillan continues to support Perenco’s Hybrid telephony system in seven offshore and onshore locations across the UK, delivering our bespoke services to the organisation.
About the University of Highlands & Islands
The University of the Highlands and Islands is a leading integrated University encompassing both further and higher education.
Based in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, it is a distinctive partnership of 13 independent colleges and research institutions. These partners are separate legal entities which employ their own staff and own their own assets. They are locally based and rooted in communities, but with national and international reach, as part of a regional university structure.
The reputation of the institution is built on an innovative approach to learning with a distinctive research and curriculum – all enriched by the people, natural environment, economy, culture and heritage of the Highlands and Islands and its communities.
Amillan realised the importance of ensuring good sound communications and collaboration was paramount to the University as it strives to meet the ever-changing requirements and goals of its students and partners.
The Solution
The University was looking to procure a third line support contract for its existing IP telephony system and Contact Centre estate, across all 13 institutions.
With varying sites being more critical than others and with varying hours of operations, the bespoke & tailored support package addressed all areas that allowed the university to thrive with seamless communications. Ranging from Problem & Incident Management, Reporting, Field Engineering, Service Review Meetings and much more. This precisely matched the requirements of the university.
Amillan remains fully committed to continuing to supply an uninterrupted service and support package for the University of Highlands & Islands and look forward to continuing to build the relationship, whilst constantly refining the services provided.
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