Victim Support
An independent charity for people affected by crime and traumatic events, with 120 locations across England and Wales.
Maintel helped Victim Support slash IT expenditure by 40 per cent with new fully managed IT infrastructure, including Secure Connect (formerly ICON Secure), Maintel SD-WAN (formerly ICON Connect) and UC Private Plus (formerly ICON Communicate). This was delivered as a complete managed service on a per user, per month, cost basis.
At a glance
The issue:
A large, overly complex technology and communications infrastructure, comprising multiple service providers and technology.
The project:
Update of IT server infrastructure and installation of ICON Secure, ICON Connect and ICON Communicate.
The outcome:
Consolidating multiple technologies and service providers. 40 per cent saving in IT expenditure and fully scalable solution for future growth.
The Background
Maintel helped Victim Support slash IT expenditure by 40 per cent with new fully managed IT infrastructure, including ICON Secure, ICON Connect and ICON Communicate. This was delivered as a complete managed service on a per user, per month, cost basis.
The Challenge
Victim Support operates from around 120 locations around the country, including police stations, courts and its own offices. Over the course of its 40-year history the charity had amassed a large and complex technology and communications infrastructure, comprising multiple service providers and a mix of legacy technologies.
As a longstanding key technology partner, Maintel had provided Victim Support with a MPLS wide area network (WAN) to connect 71 of its physical locations. Maintel also hosted the organisation’s central server infrastructure and databases. However a multitude of other providers looked after Victim Support’s telephony and connectivity needs, resulting in a complex, unwieldy and expensive IT estate.
Understandably Victim Support wanted to update its sprawling IT infrastructure, and sought a strategic partner to rationalise its IT estate, save money and make its communications fit for the future.
Why Maintel
Maintel proposed a fully-managed IT infrastructure to replace a plethora of existing technologies and provider relationships. As part of its proposal Maintel looked to bring down the charity’s IT costs by 40 per cent, while enhancing the services supplied.
Maintel won the contract for several reasons, providing a clear vision for an allencompassing managed service that would enable Victim Support to rationalise its services and relationships.
As an agnostic supplier Maintel was able to offer best-of-breed technology across vendors to upgrade Victim Support’s legacy connectivity. This forms the backbone for the entire infrastructure, including communications between its various locations around England and Wales.
The Solution
With security such an important factor, Maintel deployed ICON Secure, the company’s own fully-managed, always-on security service delivered from the Maintel cloud. ICON Secure protects Victim Support from cyber security threats including viruses, hacking, piracy and DDoS attacks, providing consistent, high quality safeguard against the full range of threats.
Maintel ICON Secure replaced an existing system, and features full PCI compliance along with all relevant cybersecurity accreditations for the charity’s important relationships with courts and police forces.
Prior to this project Victim Support had made significant investment in its core server infrastructure, including replacing its ageing application servers. Maintel took control of server co-location, moving the hardware into a dedicated data environment and transferring key operational data into its ICON core.
This includes critical line of business systems such as databases, payroll software, HR systems, domain and Exchange servers. All these systems now reside on the ICON core, where they are fully-managed and optimised by Maintel’s engineers.
Victim Support had previously operated Lync for internal messaging and collaboration. Maintel replaced this with a new system based on Skype for Business and Enterprise Voice, enabling workers to communicate externally via VoIP, and provides federation for communicating with suppliers and volunteers in a secure, reliable and controlled way.
What are the benefits?
Maintel consolidated Victim Support’s previously fragmented IT estate and delivered a fully-managed network and communications infrastructure based on the latest technology. The new service features full redundancy with zero points of failure, ensuring absolute resilience and full redundancy to meet Victim Support’s needs.
Communication between geographically dispersed locations are now ultra-secure and reliable, while new functionalities enable the charity’s volunteers and staff to access data and applications wherever they are.
Even more importantly, the entire service is delivered on a dedicated infrastructure, on a fixed cost-per-user basis. Everything is included in the cost, including network infrastructure, professional services, project management, security devices, co-location, Skype infrastructure and SIP trunking. Management and monitoring, meanwhile, mean that Victim Support can be sure that its infrastructure will always operate at optimum capabilities.
Maintel is now responsible for the backbone of Victim Support’s operations. Thanks to the new infrastructure, the charity has cut IT spend by 40%, which can be ploughed back into support teams. Maintel has also smoothed integration with other environments like the courts and police stations, which are challenging from a security point of view.
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