Run a multi-site businesses
Improve communication between sites, reduce costs and simplify administrative processes.
Case study: Changing Lives
Changing Lives is a national registered charity that provides specialist support services for 6000 vulnerable people and their families, every month. The charity has been helping the most vulnerable and socially excluded for more than 45 years.
Now operating across the North East, Yorkshire, Merseyside and the Midlands, this national organisation has more than 400 members of staff and 550 volunteers who work to change the lives of 20,000 people each year. Its services include: tailored women’s services, recovery centered projects; veteran-specific services; homelessness services; and a scheme offering people a home for life.
Challenge
Changing Lives was facing a number of issues with the mobile systems and security measures it had in place. There was a limitation in the resources available to accommodate the volume of IT related enquiries being generated internally – the charity has an excess of 350 mobile phones in the field and members of the IT team found that a lot of their time was being taken up in mobile support, as there was no structured system to handle all enquiries.
In addition, the administration of mobile accounts wasn’t well structured, and this had a major impact on the charity’s operations.
In 2016, Changing Lives reviewed its mobile communications and processes to see if the volume of enquiries could be handled more effectively. The charity felt that it was important to upgrade its mobile system and management software – but any transition would have to entail a very minimal disruption to its services.
Solution
Cellular Solutions provided Samsung J5 mobile handsets along with an effective mobile device management system, MaaS360. This is a cloud-based solution that allows for updates and patches to be made automatically with no effort required by the administrator.
It also encourages flexible working and reduces hardware costs. The team at Cellular Solutions also sourced the best value network for the organisation’s specific needs and usage patterns from O2.
Training was then provided to the end-users at Changing Lives to help them understand the benefits of the handsets and MaaS360, get them up to speed with using the handsets and mobile device management system, and ultimately, help them work more efficiently and effectively.
Outcome
Kevin Patterson, IT manager at Changing Lives, said: “There are many who subscribe that service is a business cost, however Cellular Solutions have demonstrated that superior service can help drive business growth. This has certainly been the case within our own IT department who now have a fantastic, supported one stop shop for all our mobile requirements.
“Cellular Solutions have completely and utterly taken any pain we had with the mobile phone systems and completely owned the whole process. We have very little enquiries to our IT department – the mobile solutions get handled by the account manager and support staff within Cellular Solutions, the whole process has been brilliant and as an organisation we are very pleased with the support we receive, MaaS360 is the ideal security solution and our handsets are great.”
