Amillan

Before settling for your current vendor, consider a better deal, with the potential for a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

When considering the cost of refreshing your network, it’s crucial to look beyond the price points of switches and access points. Consider the typical five-to-seven-year lifespan of the network equipment and take a closer look at both the hard costs such as hardware, maintenance, licensing and support, and the soft costs such as network downtimes and operational efficiency

In addition to these obvious costs, there are many other factors affecting your network’s Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) including interoperability with existing products and management systems, purchasing models and market instabilities.

Of course, all vendors are not created equal. To help you choose a vendor that can provide the most cost-effective solution for your next network equipment purchase or upgrade, here’s a vendor comparison checklist to consider:

Amillan recommends you consider Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise for your next network refresh. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise provides digital age networking, communications, and cloud solutions, with flexible business models. All ALE’s solutions have built-in security and limited environmental impact. They have a proven track record with years of global experience in networking. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise stack up very well against competitors. In fact, customers have rated them higher than Cisco. Read this Gartner Peer Insights head-to-head comparison.

Amillan are confident we can find you with an equal or better solution than your current vendor. Contact Amillan today to discuss your requirements and to compare options from leading networking vendors.

In a strong economy, most businesses will enjoy greater prosperity. Disposable income is at a high, consumers are financially confident, which means they’re more likely to increase their purchasing. For SMEs, it can be a double-edged sword. As trading ramps up, SME workforces can feel too stretched to handle all the new business. If the economy slumps, they’re the first to feel the pinch. And unlike their enterprise counterparts, SMEs often lack the steady cashflow and financial resilience needed to survive, what can be, a rollercoaster economy.

While SMEs rarely say no to new customers, when it comes to effective communications they can’t always adequately deal with them. So, while being busy is a nice problem to have – it’s still a problem. In this case, businesses should consider their current communications solution. Traditional technology is inherently inflexible, changes can be slow to make and the systems can lack features designed to make customer service delivery easier.

Fortunately for SMEs, call management solutions have come a long way from the old switchboard – or indeed, the legacy desk-phone with a choice of three lines for callers. Today sees some exceptional feature-rich solutions using IP-based technology, SIP Trunking. These solutions offer intelligent call routing and redirection based on the number dialled, time and location of the caller, efficient call queuing and designated call continuity plans, that the business can control.

This last feature is crucial for SMEs, who can’t afford to miss a call and know that an unanswered phone might mean custom going elsewhere. Email alerts are available for missed calls and automatic call diversions if the desired number is busy or unable to answer

We’re living in an age of data and analytics and there’s no reason that the telephone should be excluded from that. After all, the easiest way to make something better is to fully understand how it works.

Inbound call management solutions are data-rich systems, designed to give businesses a greater understanding of who is calling, when and why. With that information, they can adapt staffing schedules to account for busy times and even take on new people if the data tells them it’s the right thing to do.

This, as with every other aspect of a call management system, is hosted in a simple-to-use online portal, which is also supported by an app. Again, this is a huge boost for SMEs. Quick access to key call management tools makes it easy to manage inbound calls with no need to burden staff or for outsourcing.

We all know that SMEs are integral to national prosperity. Whether that’s because they employ so much of the UK workforce, or because they form the economic heart of the nation. But more and more we’re seeing stories about SMEs being squeezed, or struggling to grow as well as they might.

By replacing traditional ISDN-based telephony with SIP, SMEs are not only able to take on more business but can also save up to 50% on line rental and up to 25% on calls. These savings can free up resources for innovation projects to capitalise on the new sources of income.

Success depends on being able to take every opportunity that opens up. That’s why it’s vital for SMEs to know who’s talking to them and what they want from the conversation. SIP-based communication solutions enable exactly that.

Amillan has the skills and support level to ensure you always have the services you need up and running. We possess the ability to ‘port’ existing numbers over to your SIP trunks, a vital consideration for business continuity and customer confidence.

Contact Amillan today, so that we can guide you through your transition to SIP and VoIP.

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.

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.”

Lyons Seafoods is the UK’s leading supplier of prawns and speciality seafoods, providing the highest quality products from controlled ecologically sound and sustainable sources.

Lyons places environmental considerations at the core of its business operations and is an industry leader in sustainable sourcing and ethical partnerships.

Lyons Seafoods operates three sites in the UK (totalling approx. 300 users), two in the South West of England, with a third 400 miles away in Duns, Scotland. The organisation has a wide variety of job functions, including traditional desk workers, home/ mobile workers and factory operatives.

With platforms approaching the end of life, Lyons Seafoods was keen to explore the latest developments in Unified Communications, seeing the potential for IT to become a facilitator in increasing operational efficiency across their geographically dispersed workforce.

Amillan sought to deeply understand Lyon Seafoods’ requirements and the business environment that the solution would have to exist within. After evaluating several alternatives it was decided that a Microsoft Skype for Business Unified Communications and Enterprise Voice platform would best address the problems that the organisation was facing.

To allow communications in areas of the factory with poor signal, Amillan also worked with Lyons Seafoods to improve Wi-Fi signal coverage which would give them access to Skype for Business from a smartphone or tablet, allowing them full UC functionality whilst roaming around the site. This development meant for the first time, all employees are connectable and contactable across Lyons’ entire estate.

In addition, Amillan provides ongoing training and priority technical support via the in-house Amillan Service Centre (ASC) to Lyons Seafoods, ensuring any issues encountered can be dealt with quickly and efficiently, with minimal impact to Lyons Seafood’s day-to-day business operations.

After roughly 7 years of successfully supporting the Skype for Business platform, Amillan assisted Lyons Seafoods in their migration to Microsoft Teams in the Office 365 cloud, utilising Voice Direct Routing. This allowed Lyons Seafoods to seamlessly migrate to Microsoft’s latest offering in UC, without affecting the daily running of the business.

Amillan, in partnership with Quiss technology, continues to work closely with Lyons Seafoods to help them ensure their infrastructure is agile enough to take advantage of the latest developments and features in UC.

ISDN is fast becoming a technology of the past with the service set to be phased out by 2025 and replaced by SIP, an IP based service delivered over broadband and/or leased live circuits.

Here are some considerations that organisations need to think about when planning a move away from ISDN to SIP.

This is a great time to define your business needs and document your existing communications connectivity, for example, how many phone lines and numbers you have and where they lead to or terminate. Consider too what currently happens to calls if your lines are busy – are they queued or handled by voicemail?

Because SIP trunks are more flexible and versatile than ISDN this is also the time to map out how you could use and benefit from the new features that will be available once you have made the switch. This would include for example updating your disaster recovery and business continuity plans as SIP trunks can have user-configured failover to secondary circuits for resilience and/or call redirection to alternative locations. At the same time, you can assess your remote and homeworking plans so that employees working outside of the main head office have access to free ‘on-net’ calls due to the fact they are on the same dialling plan.

SIP is perfect for seasonal business or planned changes in call activity volumes such as a sales and marketing campaign so you can factor these requirements in with your supplier – and remember, unlike ISDN with SIP you only pay for the services you use and not for spare trunks to sit idle when they are not required.

Many PBX phone systems designed after 2007 are compatible with SIP but today many users are ditching legacy, hardware-based telephony solutions for cloud or hosted telephony and now is a great time to examine the deployment benefits of these new solutions. Again, with cloud telephony, you only pay for what you use which is perfect for fast-growing organisations and those with seasonal requirements.

Contact Amillan today, so that we can guide you through your transition to SIP and VoIP.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to transform education by profoundly altering how schools, colleges and universities gather data, interface with users and automate processes. IoT refers to the networking of physical objects through the use of embedded sensors, actuators and other devices that can collect and transmit information about real-time campus activity. When IoT is combined with technologies such as user mobility and data analytics, it brings a new paradigm in education. IoT enables institutions to:

• Create new ways for students to learn by supporting more personalised and dynamic learning experiences such as immersive digital textbooks and game-based learning.
• Change how teachers deliver lessons and test achievement with smart audio-visual equipment, digital video recorders for lecture capture, and online testing.

• Simplify operations for school administrators by proactively monitoring critical infrastructure and creating more efficient, cost-effective processes for HVAC, lighting and landscape management.
• Provide a safer environment for students and teachers with digital surveillance cameras, smart door locks and connected school buses.

IoT solutions promise to make schools and universities smarter as well as more successful at what they do. The IoT has the potential to redefine how students, teachers and administrators interact and connect to technology and devices in classroom environments, helping enhance learning experiences, improve educational outcomes and reduce costs. Examples of IoT solutions for education include:

• Smart whiteboards and other interactive digital media that can gather and analyse data for teachers and students for use in the classroom—or anywhere else, at any time—optimising instruction and improving learning outcomes.
• Solutions such as smart temperature sensors and smart heating, ventilation and air condition equipment that reduce energy consumption and automate operations management.
• Smart student ID cards, attendance-tracking devices, school bus tracking systems and parking sensors that monitor the physical whereabouts of students.
• Wireless door locks, connected surveillance cameras and facial recognition systems that provide security for teachers, students and staff.
• Research programs enhanced with more advanced and automated systems in major areas of study, such as medicine, agriculture and engineering.

The IoT brings unprecedented flows of data, presenting performance, operational and management challenges to the network infrastructure along with increased security risks from all end-points. To address these issues, network administrators at educational institutions need to adapt traditional network designs to provide new levels of network intelligence, automation and security. Schools and universities need a cost-effective network infrastructure that securely handles vast flows of data, but is also simple to manage and operate. The infrastructure must:

• Provide a simple, automated process for IoT device onboarding. Large IoT systems can contain thousands of devices or sensors, and manually provisioning and managing all of these endpoints is complex and error-prone. Automated onboarding enables the network infrastructure to dynamically recognise devices and assign them to the appropriate secured network.
• Supply the correct network resources for the IoT system to run properly and efficiently. Many devices in the IoT system deliver mission-critical information that requires a specific level of QoS. For example, some educational use cases require proper bandwidth reservations on a high-performance network infrastructure to ensure service delivery and reliability.
• Provide a secure environment against cyberattack and data loss. Because the many networked devices and sensors in the IoT lead to a corresponding abundance of potential attack vectors, security is critical for mitigating risks of cybercrime. Security is necessary at multiple levels, including containment of the IoT networks themselves.

Amillan offers converged wired and wireless solutions to address networking challenges, management complexity and offer a consistent user experience. They comprise a rich set of secure services that enable employees and customers to use corporate or personal, wired or wireless devices on the enterprise network, while the enhancements also help simplify IT operations, improving security and protecting business investments.

As a skilled integrator, Amillan blends together ‘best of breed’ technologies and elements to bring you a cohesive, reliable and secure, high-performance network that supports your organisation’s operations.

IM Group is a major international company founded in the Midlands in 1976. Since then, IM Group has grown and diversified to become an internationally-renowned family-owned powerhouse in the automotive, property and finance sectors, employing around 500 staff across the world. The business is built on integrity, relationships and being inventive & innovative, whilst also being founded on a strong Christian ethos.

IM Group Ltd were required to relocate from its headquarters in Coleshill to Fore Business Park in Solihull, bringing in excess of 250 jobs to the area. The move was in response to IM’s current offices in Coleshill being acquired by HS2 to make way for the London to Birmingham High-Speed line.

A purpose-built, state of the art campus including offices and a training academy was to be constructed for the IM Group of companies including IM Properties, Spitfire Bespoke Homes, International Motors, Isuzu UK and Subaru UK. The campus also included an office for Christian Vision, a charity established by IM’s founder Lord Edmiston.

IM Group were faced with modern digital transformation trends such as offering an ‘Internet of Things’ approach, allowing employees the freedom to choose any device and access the network from anywhere, at any time, and migration to the cloud.

Having recently been appointed to carry out the structured cabling systems throughout the campus, Amillan were given the opportunity to provide a wired and wireless network for the campus, supporting multiple voice, data and video services within the campus.

Using the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Unified Access Strategy, Amillan were able to provide a consistent network service and application experience for both wired and wireless devices, offering the same high-quality performance using Wi-Fi or connected via an Ethernet cable.

The Solution also included a rich set of secure services to support IoT and enable BYOD users to use their own devices o the enterprise network.

About Walsall College

Walsall College is one of the most successful colleges in the country – a place where more than 14,000 people study vocational-technical qualifications, apprenticeships, and higher education programmes each year. Their vision is to provide students with an outstanding learning experience, education and skills development to support them into higher levels of study and jobs.

Our Relationship

The college was mindful of the fact that they needed a seamless migration from the old systems to the new environment. Walsall needed a technology partner who could provide a fully integrated solution, had a proven track record of doing so and had the vision to provide the college with the technology solutions to take them into the future.

Amillan was chosen to provide structured cabling, telephony, data and applications for the Wirsemore campus. Working with Amillan on the project right from the beginning, provided Walsall College with a greater level of integration. Our solutions were also able to provide the college with simplified communications and high levels of mobility for staff and students.

“Seamless migration was our objective on the project and with Amillan we achieved that. Throughout the project, we had every confidence that they would deliver what they promised and they did.” – Walsall Collge

The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) needs little introduction. In July each year, it takes centre stage on the sports calendar, playing host to the Wimbledon Grandslam tennis tournament. It has become an iconic venue and over the years it’s changed and modernised while still keeping its classical elegance – setting it apart from any other sports venue.

The Grounds consist of 18 grass courts (including Centre Court and No.1 Court), eight American Clay courts and five indoor courts, two Greenset Velvelux and three Greenset Trophy. In Aorangi Park, there are 20 grass courts for practice before and during The Championships and two green acrylic courts. The total area, including the Club’s car parks, covers over 42 acres.

For over 20 years, Amillan has worked with the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC).

During this time, Amillan has provided the ICT infrastructure a number of projects that have changed the face of Wimbledon and gained applause from tennis fans all around the world.

Given the nature of the organisation, timescales for delivering projects at Wimbledon are always tight. Even in the most complex scenarios, Amillan has always delivered on time and provided enough flexibility to allow for anyunforeseen challenges or amendments to the overall project plan.

As a supplier, Amillan is very proud of its association with Wimbledon and the length of the relationship is testament to the quality of the service and solutions provided by Amillan. Looking ahead to some exciting times, Amillan is committed to providing Wimbledon with new solutions and services to help it to embrace the new world of communications, and continue to re-affirm its position as one of the most iconic sporting venues in the world.

For over a quarter of a century, Imagination has created technology that sits at the heart of many of the world’s most iconic devices – from the first 3D graphics accelerators to gaming consoles and smartphones.

Imagination is a strong, independent IP company. They pride themselves on their consistent focus and creating win-win products in conjunction with our customers. Imagination’s powerful, cutting-edge designs are driving the digital revolution forward by enabling their partners to build world-changing electronics.

Due to substantial growth, Imagination identified the need for a new office at its headquarters site in Kings Langley. For the new facility, a data networking solution was required that would allow multiple system profiles, allowing users access to pre-specified areas of the network. Recommended to Imagination Technologies by a consultancy firm, Amillan provided technical advice and a bespoke design to meet the demands and level of service specified by the client. Amillan’s fully integrated LAN and Wi-Fi solution supports advanced security features such as wireless intrusion protection, policy enforcement firewalling, rogue access point detection and prevention.