A consumer-driven business, the company has witnessed a huge shift in the demands of its customers. Traditionally a producer of after-dinner mints for special occasions, the company has recently xtended it’s range and introduced new products to meet the more relaxed and casual lifestyle of todays customers.

The Issues
In recent years, Bendicks have seen the pace of change increase dramatically. As a result the company has had to quickly adapt and evolve in order to keep up with changing customer needs as well as the demands of the UK’s supermarket multiples (who represent the company’s main retail outlets). In terms of the phone system and telecoms infrastructure, there were several issues that were hindering Bendick’s ability to move with the market.

Kieron Brogan, head of I.T. explains the three key issues which had to be addressed. “Firstly, our previous phone system was over 15 years old, so we recognised the need to modernise to a system that would last and be future-proof“ he says.“Secondly, we felt that VoIP telecoms technology had matured to a point where it was able to offer us facilities that would allow us to be more proactive as a business. Finally, with an increasing number of our employees working remotely we wanted a phone system and telecoms infrastructure that would allow us to better integrate our workforce.” In essence, Kieron says he wanted to “find a telecoms supplier we could work with as a partner.”

The Answer
Having made the decision to upgrade the telephone sytem and telecoms infrastructure, Kieron says there were several factors that put Southern Communications ahead of the competition. Firstly, says Kieron, was the “open and honest approach which gave me the confidence they would provide a phone system that was best fit for our business and not theirs!”

Kieron says the costs were also very competitive. However, most important was the fact that Southern Communications “took the time to properly spec the phone system” and provide a proposal that wasn’t “unnecessarily complex” like their competitors. The telephone system proposed was the Avaya IP500 which Kieron says was the same as that being used by the sister company in the US.

This would allow them to bridge the geographic gap between the two companies and allow them to seamlessly exchange phone calls. The Avaya IP500 phone system is also extremely future-proof and more likely to adapt and change with the needs of the business over time. “It’s a good, straightforward and flexible phone system” says Kieron. Once the decision had been made to move to Southern Communications and the Avaya IP500, Kieron says the rest of the process was extremely easy. “Southern Communications were excellent and made the whole process really simple - even down to liasing with BT to move the phone lines. If we’d had to deal with this ourselves it would have been extremely difficult - especially with the layers of account manager and other contacts.”

The Benefits
Since the move, Bendicks have started to enjoy some important benefits that have allowed them to improve the operating efficiencies whilst also reducing costs. Kieron comments, “The Avaya system has given us the platform to grow the telecoms infrastructure for the future and we’re able to better integrate both our US office and our homeworkers through voicemail, etc”. Telecoms costs have also been significantly reduced since switching to Southern Communications and the phone system maintenance fees have been decreased as well. The result is a telecoms infrastructure that is well suited to the future needs of the organisation, satisfies the need to better integrate the business and it’s employees and is delivering better value for money and greater efficiency to the business as a whole.

more on IP500 and IP Office phone systems

Bendicks deployed the IP500 - the latest version of Avaya's state-of-the-art IP Office telephone system family, first introduced over 10 years ago.

The IP 500 Phone system is a rack-mounted unit, forming part of the IT infrastructure within the comms room. Support for ISDN, Analogue and SIP trunks allows for any combination of line connections in any format.

The Avaya 1600-series VoIP Telephones are used at Bendicks to give phone users easy telephone features at the touch of button.





Avaya's Phonemanager software can be installed on user computers to provide additional telecoms functions for phone system users. Phonemanager Lite is a free-of-charge site licence for all.


Call us on 0845 634 4008 for a full Avaya IP500 system demonstration