Sector
Technology
Users
140+
Solutions
Microsoft Teams, Chess Teams Voice Services
JUST IT are national providers of apprenticeships and training, located in London. Because the business revolves around training candidates to start and develop their careers in IT, they must have a secure, reliable, and efficient telephony and communications setup.
This became a significant priority with the start of the pandemic and the introduction of remote working. With a 10-year-old Samsung telephony system, the worry was that it would not be up to the job of supporting JUST IT’s future communications needs.
The Challenge
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, JUST IT needed a telephony service that could work for their staff remotely. Unfortunately, their current setup couldn’t fully support this requirement. Andy Yu said of the state of JUST IT’s legacy telephony system:
“In December 2019, we were already pushing towards Teams and away from Skype. The setup we had could work internally but not externally. Although it was fine for our internal support team, it wasn’t going to work remotely for our sales and management teams.” “Before the Teams Voice implementation, our team members needed to use their own phones or even burner phones.”
The Solution
To ensure that JUST IT could remain operational throughout lockdown, they needed a solution that would allow their teams to work anywhere. To provide due diligence, the organisation sent out an RFQ to three potential providers, including Chess, the incumbent ISP, and another IT company.
As Andy Yu explains, the proposal submitted by Chess was a step above the other responses:
“Chess proposed two solutions. The first was for direct routing with Teams Voice, the second being a VoIP solution based on Chess’s PBX system. We chose the former as it was a more economical and integrated single system, which for us was a complete no brainer.”
Andy Yu speaks highly of the Chess team, paying compliment to the Teams Voice and capability demonstration displayed.
"The presentation from Chess basically made our decision for us,” says Andy.
"The project management from Chess was extremely high quality. They managed our expectations every step of the way. For us, this Teams Voice integration was far and away our smoothest project with yet.”
- Andy Yu, IT Manager & Technical Trainer, JUST IT
The Result
The whole JUST IT team benefited from the Teams Voice communications early on in COVID Lockdown #1. With the unprecedented circumstances resulting in everyone working remotely from home, it was a critical project.
A further key reason for selecting Chess’s Teams Voice proposal was the clear explanation around the project’s cost and timescale, including realistic estimates of the downtime that would need to be managed during the migration.
On this aspect, Chess delivered on its promises.
Speaking of the implementation work, Andy Yu singles out the clear and transparent project management received from Chess throughout the project as a significant bonus.
"The project management from Chess was extremely high quality. They managed our expectations every step of the way. For us, this Teams Voice integration was far and away our smoothest project with yet.”
- Andy Yu, IT Manager & Technical Trainer, JUST IT