Anywhere with Webex | Gurste Case study
UK startup Gurste is taking on big responsibilities. They work to ensure no organisation faces a crisis alone. They might help a small shop recover after a fire, aid an international distributor with sudden supply chain issues, or assist clients with their security and counter-terrorism planning.
No matter the client, Gurste starts with a process of threat and risk assessment to determine what they need to prepare the client for. Once the assessment is complete, Gurste works with clients to develop plans the businesses can implement should threats and risks materialize. Most importantly, these plans help ensure that employees stay safe and receive long-term support as needed. Gurste also helps companies build public relations plans and identify other ongoing actions they might need to take after a crisis. From there, Gurste supports its client in training their teams to ensure that plans run like clockwork as soon as they’re required.
With such a wide range of clients scattered internationally, Gurste needed a collaboration platform that was secure, reliable, cost-efficient, and easy to use. They tried Microsoft Teams, but found the user experience clunky. Gurste explored Zoom, but it struggled to meet necessary security requirements. They also used RingCentral, but moved away due to a mixture of high prices and first-party support for Cisco desk phones. After ruling these providers out, they worked with their Cisco partner and decided Cisco Webex was the perfect fit due to its robust feature set, performance, security, and support.
“We are a remote-first company, so Cisco Webex is central to what we do,” said Gurste’s CEO Connor Gurney.
Gurste uses Cisco Webex Meetings as their primary method of communicating with clients, both on an everyday basis and during an incident. The video conferencing tool’s many features have served the business well.
“We regularly use the recording and transcription features of Cisco Webex Meetings to ensure that everybody can access information,” Gurney said. “This means that we always have a record of truth, which is vital when conducting post-incident reviews.”
When disaster strikes and clients call, time is of the essence. Gurste must quickly make accurate assessments of the situation and rapidly deploy the correct resources.
“Let’s say there was a fire in the building. We can quickly send them a link to join a Cisco Webex Meeting via their mobile phone when they’re in a safe place and see what is happening in real-time,” Gurney said. “It can be incredibly easy to underestimate what’s going on based on just a phone call. Having reliable video conferencing available is important for us. Having Cisco Webex video conferencing allows us to see and understand the situation — first-hand.”
Security is critical for Gurste. Whether responding to an incident in real-time or developing a contingency plan, clients share details that need to stay safe and private.
“A lot of the information we handle is incredibly sensitive. We must have the very best in security, and we get that with Webex. Webex offers end-to-end encryption and is the only solution we identified that is able to offer this on VoIP calls, meetings, and messaging, which made it by far the best solution for our security needs.”
While they previously had to make calls from their personal mobile phones while working remotely, Gurste now relies on the Cisco Webex Calling platform to make and receive calls from any device, anywhere in the world.
In times when a phone call is the right move, the Gurste team has found Cisco Webex Calling to be an excellent resource for internal and external collaboration. They also use the Cisco Webex App to collaborate with suppliers in the UK and abroad.
As a small company, Gurste has been impressed with the responsiveness of the Cisco Webex team. Any time they have a question or a unique challenge, the Cisco Webex team is there. There was no initial cost to get set up, and clients and contractors without technical experience were able to get up and running quickly and easily.
There are several ways that Gurste measures its ROI from Cisco Webex. One aspect relates directly to the company’s bottom line.
“Previously, we might have had to send somebody a significant distance, only to find out it could have been handled with a video conference. Cisco Webex means that now we are not deploying resources unnecessarily. We also have gained increased capabilities around security, which we didn’t have before.”
Gurste has also seen great ROI in terms of client satisfaction. Gurste needed a reliable solution that could help them communicate smoothly with clients and deliver excellent customer experiences. Having that face-to-face interaction on Cisco Webex really makes a difference.
“When our clients call, it is most likely because they are having one of the worst days of their lives. Being able to interact with somebody who is not as emotional, who can calm them down, and who can begin to provide solutions is important,” Gurney said.
Because no two incidents are ever exactly alike, the Gurste team also uses Cisco Webex as an important source of knowledge to help them learn and do better each time.
“Cisco Webex Meetings and Cisco Webex Calling enable us to have recorded and auditable conversations while responding to an incident,” Gurney said. “This is crucial as it means we can review decisions as they were made in real-time and harness the knowledge that may otherwise be lost, which allows us to learn vital lessons, which may well save lives in the future.”
Additionally, as Gurste grows and expands, it is looking into how it might leverage additional Cisco Webex solutions, such as incorporating Cisco Webex Events for webinars and other educational sessions.
Simplify and future-proof your technology footprint Amillan
The modern business environment is becoming increasingly complex, and organisations in the public sector are no exception. One key challenge is keeping up with the rapidly evolving technology landscape. With cloud computing, unified communications, and other technologies emerging as critical components of enterprise IT, public sector organisations must take steps to ensure they are efficient and meeting the needs of their stakeholders and local communities.
Cloud-hosted unified communications infrastructure can be a powerful tool in the public sector’s digital transformation efforts. Here are some of the key benefits that such infrastructure can offer:
In conclusion, cloud-hosted unified communications infrastructure is an increasingly important technology for public sector organizations looking to transform their operations and maximise efficiency. By providing enhanced collaboration, increased productivity, improved flexibility and scalability, better security and compliance, lower costs, and improved citizen engagement, this infrastructure can offer significant benefits to public sector organisations of all sizes and types. To realize these benefits, it is essential that public sector organisations work with trusted and experienced service providers like Amillan to design, deploy, and manage their unified communications systems. Contact Amillan to discuss how we can help you take the next steps on your digital transformation journey.
BT Openreach has announced it intends to switch off the traditional, copper-based telephone network in 2025. This is commonly referred to as the PSTN Switch Off.
If your business is still using landline telephones and fax machines, the switch off will dramatically impact your operations. You’ll need to plan for how this situation will change how your staff communicates with clients, customers, partners and vendors and how you’ll cope with that change.
While 2025 may seem a while away, from December 2023 you won’t be able to purchase any new ISDN or PSTN-based services, with many locations affected by a stop sell much sooner than that. At Amillan we are seeing an increasing number of customers being affected by being unable to purchase new ISDN lines or add new features at certain exchanges which have already implemented the stop sell.
Phase Out Timeline
| Now Phase Out Begins |
December 2022 Salisbury End of Life |
September 2023 UK-wide Stop Sell |
December 2025 UK PSTN End of Life |
| In preparation for the roll out customers across 170 locations cannot purchase new ISDN lines or add new features from end 2021. | The PSTN network is completely switched off in Salisbury. | Customers across the whole country cannot purchase new ISDN lines or add new features. | The PSTN network is completely switched off across the UK. |
What does this mean for my business?
The PSTN Switch Off will affect all businesses currently operating using PSTN and ISDN services. If you fall into this category, you will need to plan to move to the new VOIP network to keep your business phone system and your number working.
The migration may also impact legacy services like fax machines, security, lift and fire alarms, telecare devices, retail payment (PDQ) terminals and equipment for monitoring and controlling networks. These rely on some features of the PSTN that are not fully replicated in VoIP-based platforms and may require further upgrades to ensure they continue to operate following the switch off.
Customers using PSTN and ISDN services must take action
Amillan will be happy to assist customers in planning for and navigating the ISDN switch off. Please contact us and we will be happy to provide further information on how your organisation will be affected and what steps you need to take to ensure continued connectivity after the switch off.
We can offer a range of options including system upgrades for affected legacy services, migration to SIP and VOIP platforms or transitions to modern cloud-hosted platforms.
Please do not hesitate to contact your Account Manager or our Amilan Service Centre team on 0121 704 5840, who will be more than happy to assist.
The hospital of tomorrow is already starting a “connected” revolution. In this model, the hospital acts as a smart hub.
The intelligent administration of the hospital
Connected hospitals pool and share their network resources and data. This connected trend is expanding to include medical offices, nursing homes, health professionals, and more.
Administrators are primarily concerned with network security, network performance and network maintenance, as well as the ability to connect Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) devices and the availability of innovative apps. Patients and visitors can benefit from in-door Location-Based Services (LBS) that provide wayfinding, geo-referencing, geolocation, and behavior analytics.
The patient room of the future
Modern, friendly and ultra-connected, patient rooms contribute to the autonomy of the care staff, while facilitating the services they provide.
For simple services, the patient no longer needs to have the care staff help them. Through an application on a tablet or smartphone, they can control their bed position, change the temperature of their room, close the curtains, order meals and more. Their touch screen controls all comfort-related applications and provides hotel-type services, while the smart healthcare network ensures that all services are delivered and secured from medical applications, such as Electronic Health Records (EHR) while sharing the same network infrastructure.
Applications already exist to automate admissions and discharge from a hospital. Now those capabilities and services are also accessible through smartphones and tablet applications. This is supported by a network infrastructure that is always available, offering reliable and effective solutions for real-time connectivity for patients, care givers and other relevant parties. This intelligent connectivity becomes the indispensable and a common link in your organization.
By qualifying the patient calls to the healthcare team, caregivers can prioritize their interventions such as a call for a glass of water, call for assistance for pain, dizziness, or distress.
This will transform the way in which patients interact with staff:
• Real-time feedback of information
• Doctors can remotely monitor patients
• Increase the frequency of information exchanges between patients and the healthcare team
• Better resource and staff management with the right resources available when and where needed and required
Location-Based Services (LBS)
A relatively new capability is Location-Based Services, using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology. A LBS infrastructure is designed to provide wayfinding (indoor turn-by-turn navigation), geolocation (where am I, where is my destination) and geonotification (push messaging e.g. hand hygiene for entry/exit), as well as asset tracking, for locating people and assets:
• Simplifies the patient’s journey with self-guided navigation tools and interactive kiosks that when located in the outpatient or waiting room section, promotes dissemination of information and patient self-registration to reduce or eliminate wait times.
• Secures people and property with an intelligent alarm processing solution, able to connect events generated by an individual. A person, a sensor or connected object that staff, with the appropriate skills and nearest to the alarm, can respond.
• Enables nurses to spend more time with patients since they can reduce the amount of time looking for doctors or medical equipment
• Improves maintenance services by monitoring the medical and non-medical resources to better organize them:
• Reduce downtime of facilities or critical equipment
• Synchronize patient treatment schedules
• Improve inventory management
Innovation: People and resources in the right place at the right time
Hospitals are now setting up new Location-Based Services and solutions for people and assets. A badge provided to staff and patients helps locate them or prevents them from entering protected areas or getting lost.
A tag installed on equipment can be traced, generating a notification to the geolocation service if the equipment goes past a pre-defined zone where the equipment should not be moved to.
Crisis communication
In emergency scenarios where real-time communication and collaboration is key, the hospital will be able to synchronize all elements of its organization to provide an optimal response with:
• Mobilization of teams
• Internal and external communications
• Management of beds and rooms
• Internal patient transportation
• Location of medical equipment
• Setup of impromptu/temporary triage areas (indoor or outdoor)
A complete network connected throughout your region
Innovative, integrated hotel-type services from application partners facilitate admissions and discharges from hospitals. This provides access to hotel-like guest services such as VOD through a smartphone / tablet application.
Amillan delivers market leading solutions from Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) to supporting a single network infrastructure, secured by unified user/device policy management, with IoMT identification, onboarding, enablement and containment, all supported by a single network management system (on premise or in the cloud), that provides full configuration, management and control of a hospital network, complete with network and application analytics to fine-tune network performance. ALE is also working on an IoT Gateway that standardizes interfaces for the many protocols used by different subsystems such as home automation, IoT SigFox or LoRa, MQTT, and facilitating their integration through Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow.
ALE provides a unique solution with OmniAccess Stellar Location-Based Services (LBS) for wayfinding, geolocation and geonotification and is working on a BLE based asset tracking solution for people and assets with open APIs for application development.
A badge provided to staff as well as patients can be used to locate them and prevent them from entering protected areas or getting lost. A tag is installed on the equipment to be traced, such that when it passes near a receiver, its position is updated on a floorplan map by the asset tracking service.
ALE telephones also integrate Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) function to enrich the “mesh” and improve the geolocation accuracy.
Hospitals supported by technological innovations are future focused and place high importance on the well-being of both users and healthcare professionals. Tomorrow’s progressive hospital is being built today.
Connectivity is spearheading this transition, moving from concept to realization and generalization.
Contact Amillan today to start your journey towards the hospital of the future.
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