Europacom.net

Retail Case Study - Specsavers



Europacom delivered initial leased line services to Specsavers, dating back to 2001. However the big opportunity came in 2005 when Europacom successfully bid to replace Specsavers expensive and relatively inefficient ISDN based dial-up WAN, with an always-on broadband replacement. In 2005 Specsavers had nearly 800 stores across the UK and over 700 joint venture partners based in Ireland, Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Specsavers was selling a pair of glasses every six seconds and employing more than 12,000 people. Specsavers needed to develop an IT strategy that would help grow their competitive advantage - and their market share. The key element to their strategy was to invest in technology that harnessed the benefits of broadband for the benefit of their HQ, regional offices and retail outlets.

Progressive retailing companies know that success on an increasingly competitive high street depends as much on meeting technical challenges as it does on marketing or salesmanship. The new Chip & Pin payment terminals, the increase in online activities and the increasing demand for Wi-Fi capability were exposing ISDN's limitations and high costs. ISDN data infrastructure which was once a cutting-edge advantage, had become a drain on resources.

An upgrade should always be exactly that - a real and tangible improvement on what is already in place. However, before making the commitment to upgrade and update, Specsavers needed to be convinced that the new network would not only be innovative enough to meet their needs, but remain within their IT budgets. They also had to consider that they were a business with a complex operation spread over many locations. Over an eight week rollout programme, Europacom delivered a new analogue line, activated the broadband and physically installed a VPN router to all Specsavers 800 UK stores. The rollout also coincided with Europacom providing leased line delivery to six regional offices, and the re-configuration of the VPN topology.

Once the UK rollout had been completed, the overseas stores were addressed. This involved Europacom engaging with national carriers in The Netherlands, Eire, Norway and Finland with international backhaul being arranged to Europacom's facilities in Docklands, London. Managed CPE (Cisco routers) were installed by Europacom staff in 170 sites in The Netherlands and at over 40 sites in Eire. Cisco PIX technology was deployed for self-install by Specsavers network maintainers in Scandinavia. Once the rollout was completed, Specsavers were receiving essential trading information from their outlets, in virtually real-time, meaning that weekly trading figures were available to the senior management 2 days earlier that previously.

From 2005 to 2009, Europacom increased both their domestic and international comms footprint with Specsavers culminating in an eclectic mix of services, touching well over 1,000 network end points in 8 countries. Technologies include:

• Private circuits
• Leased lines
• Line of sight microwave technology
• PSTN
• ISDN
• Broadband
• Atlas Management
• Aphelion Managed Wi-Fi
• BroadlySpeak.ing

Nigel Spain, Specsavers Network Architect, commented "Specsavers chose Europacom for the planning and implementation of our nationwide network and extended international reach. The transition to a secure broadband network was seamless, with Europacom delivering services on time and within budget. We continue to work closely with Europacom for certain of our communications infrastructure requirements"

Specsavers continued their overseas expansion and for the first time in 2008, operated more outlets outside of the UK than within it. This was seen within the business as a defining feature for the future and a decision was taken to build a global comms infrastructure in conjunction with an international carrier acting as principal contractor. However Europacom continue to provide significant services within the UK including their proprietary services.