The Davies Group Partnership

Case Study: Multi-office organisation
Business: The Davies Group Partnership
Type of business: Claims management and loss adjusters

Maintaining effective communications within any organisation can be extremely difficult, but when a company operates numerous offices throughout the country and employs scores of remote workers, the complexity of the task can sometimes seem unmanageable.

The Davies Group Partnership has steadily grown over more than 30 years and now employs around 350 people in 30 offices and other disparate locations across the country. A considerable number of these employees are remote workers and require access to the company’s IT network that is of comparable speed and reliability to that afforded to their office-based colleagues.

In July 2001, Davies Group installed BTopenworld Teleworker as a cost-effective and secure means of connecting its remote workers and offices. Using ADSL broadband, Teleworker provides ‘always-on’ access to the internet and company intranet, 24 hours per day.

IT manager, Nilesh Patel, signed the company up to the BTopenworld Teleworker package because it enables employees to view claim information and plan their workload by reviewing correspondence from customers, suppliers and colleagues online. Assessors can also look at the current status of claims in near real-time, via the ADSL network.

“The multiple user connections come at a regular and predictable monthly cost, thereby avoiding the fluctuations that are inevitable with dial-up connections,” explains Patel.

Installing Teleworker meant not only a potential £8,000 per annum reduction on inter-office phone bills; it was also responsible for significant time savings and improved customer service.

Previously, employees would sometimes spend hours on individual emergency insurance claims because they would have to ring each of the branches to corroborate data. Now, with BTopenworld Teleworker installed, all agents and assessors can have immediate access to the required information and the distribution of claim information rarely takes more than five minutes.

Since BTopenworld Teleworker was installed at the homes of remote workers as well as the branches of Davies Group, employees can now access the Internet more frequently, without worrying about the cumulative cost to the business.

“Because of the ‘always-on’ and fixed fee aspect, the ongoing costs which used to be a worry are no longer a concern. The Internet and company Intranet are critical tools for conducting business, and we can all use them more freely,” says Patel.