one net

"It is now much easier for whoever takes a call to just say that they will transfer them. Previously they had to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of where everybody was at that moment but now they can just put a call through to the appropriate person"

Charles Weir | Managing Director | Penrillian

• staff can communicate more easily and flexibly – enhancing the collaboration which gives the company its competitive edge
• the robustness and reliability of one net gives Penrillian peace of mind
• having one supplier simplifies the management and support of the company's communications
• as the company grows the solution will easily and cost efficiently grow with them
• the company avoids the costs or trouble of investing in an in-house system

Penrillian's competitive edge comes from its highly collaborative way of working with its customers. This in turn calls for highly flexible and reliable communications. The company had long desired a solution that would allow them to quickly and easily stay in touch in the office and while they are on the move visiting customers. With one net, Penrillian now has the communications solution it needs to empower its all round collaboration.

Penrillian develops advanced applications for leading players in the mobile phone industry. Its portfolio includes some of the most popular and widely distributed mobile applications on the market – from predictive text input to dictionaries, from broadband connectivity to satellite navigation. With an elite team of software developers and consultants, a broad range of skills and in-depth experience of the mobile phone industry, Penrillian's mission is to be the leading expert in multi-platform development for connected devices. The company takes a highly collaborative approach adopting more of a professional services role than pure development, by maintaining close ongoing contact with customers throughout the whole project. "Our people talk a lot with the customers they are working with," says Managing Director Charles Weir. "That is where we get our edge. Unlike most software developers who produce a nice document then go away to work on it for six months, we deliver something once a week and we constantly talk to our clients about how it is going to work and how we are going to change it. That kind of interaction is vitally important to keeping us useful and competitive and our customers say that this is what they like." To support its collaboration, Penrillian needs a robust and flexible communication solution. Especially as the company is situated in the small Cumbrian town of Penrith, and its customers are in many parts of the UK and the rest of world. "We previously had an ISDN-based standard exchange and some of the staff had their own mobile phones," says Charles. "We hot desk and there were times when we were disadvantaged because we needed to transfer calls but could not find which part of the office the person was in. Because of our location, we have to travel to London regularly and we have a flexible working culture so staff operate from home part of the time but they still have to be in communication with the office." So, when Penrillian was offered the all-in-one fixed and mobile one net solution, the company was very interested.

Vodafone one net's reliability and high availability are also vitally important to ensure staff is accessible to customers.

"We now have a solution that is robust against anything going horribly wrong with the phone connections, which has happened to us in the past," says Charles. "If a phone line goes down then we have many other phones that will still work and if the local cell goes down, we have a leased line, so we now have a robustness that we never had before." The company also has the convenience of just one supplier so if there's a problem, they just contact Vodafone. Staff report that the Vodafone service is excellent, fast and genuinely helpful. Penrillian will also be able to create hunt groups, so if the first person called is not available, callers will be automatically connected with other people who are on the same team and have the necessary project knowledge. "With Vodafone one net, I am getting flexibility, robustness and the ability to work with people on the move but the integration with powerful mobile phones is extremely valuable and the most important thing for us," says Charles. "A mobile phone beats any standard telephone and going with Vodafone one net gave me a way of achieving this ideal."