Case Study - Financial Services
Skandia is a rapidly growing international financial services company that has operated in Sweden since 1855 and today operates in 20 countries, including Australia. As a result of this rapid growth, Skandia was facing increasing networking and telecommunication costs. Their existing supply contracts were about to expire and they were unsure whether they were getting value for money from their existing suppliers. They were also facing performance issues with their existing mobile services and data network.
Solution
Opnetex reviewed Skandia's networks to identify opportunities to reduce cost and improve performance. As part of this process, key Skandia people were interviewed to identify areas where the current networks were not meeting the needs of the business.
The review identified a number of opportunities for improvement which resulted in the following initiatives being undertaken:
- Competitive tendering of telecom services, resulting in lower unit costs
- Negotiating equitable contracts with suppliers
- Reviewing network capacity and eliminating unused lines
- Reviewing network configuration and consolidating redundant infrastructure
- Implementing a cellular gateway to reduce fixed-to-mobile costs
- Implementing MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) services to improve the performance of Skandia's data network and provide the capability to support voice and video in the future
- Implementing processes and tools to identify anomalies in their telecom bills and usage patterns.
Outcome
Skandia have dramatically improved their network ROI through a comprehensive approach to network optimisation. Voice, data and mobile costs have been reduced by an average of 40%. A substantial rebate was also received from an existing supplier to reimburse for historical billing errors that were identified during the project.
Performance issues with Skandia's mobile services and data network were also addressed, to better align these services to the needs of their users.
"Opnetex identified opportunities that have enabled Australian Skandia to achieve cost savings of 40% in the sourcing of its telecommunications services. In the course of this review, Opnetex also identified a variety of billing anomalies with the suppliers that resulted in rebates to address incorrect charging of services."
Joe Serrao, IT Manager, Skandia
