Major IT upgrade delivers speedy patient care
Highlights
- Upgrade of POS hardware, networking infrastructure and IT equipment
- 330 stores
- Installation, build & configuration, and support
- Agile Project Management
- Experienced Engineers
“Each store houses a Practice Management Suite – enabling stores to deliver sophisticated and speedy patient care that our customer expects. The business needs the same high level of service across our estate, and on the basis of excellent references from trusted industry sources we selected Barron McCann as our new service provider.”
IS Support Manager, Leading Optical Retailer
The Customer
Grown to an estate of more than 370 stores in the UK and Ireland, this Customer is one of the UK’s premier optical retailers. Built on a passion for the optical profession and a drive for unparalleled customer service, they opened their first ‘one hour’ Opticians in Metro Gateshead in 1988 and they remain the pioneer of a genuine one- hour service today. Part of Europe’s largest optical retailer, they continue to strengthen their position both in the UK and in Europe through their sister eye care brands, Grand Optical, Solaris and Generale D’Optique.
The Challenge
The Customer identified the need to significantly upgrade existing in-store infrastructure to deliver additional functionality and guarantee availability of service on-going. The IS Support Manager – says “each store houses an implementation of the Acuitas Practice Management Suite. Enabling stores to deliver the sophisticated and speedy patient care that our customers desire. The in-store environment required significant upgrades to incorporate new server and communications hardware, working to the latest version of the Oracle database – which itself required a major operating system upgrade. The support contracts with our multiple existing in-store service providers were about to expire, and we identified the desire for a single service provider who could both perform the upgrades in question, and take on the support of all newly upgraded IT systems moving forward. The business needs the same high level of service across our estate, and on the basis of excellent references from trusted industry sources we selected Barron McCann as our new service provider.”
The Solution
330 stores worth of new hardware was delivered to Barron McCann from HP and others. Our Projects team appointed a dedicated Project Manager who managed the upgrade programme in tandem with Barron McCann’s Service Transition Manager. The primary objective was to ensure timely deployment of the new solution and focus on the on-boarding of the newly upgraded stores into the Barron McCann Customer Service portfolio.
The Results
As the relationship has developed between the two organisations the Customer identified other benefits too Kerry says; “our experience with previous providers has suggested that once the contract has been signed, the innovation and proactive help dissipate. With Barron McCann, we’re seeing the converse approach and they’re assisting us in identifying other means by which we can jointly drive service and cost-benefit on-going”. The implementation of this business-critical project in a timely, professional and cost-effective manner was of the utmost importance to the Customer, as is the on-going support thereafter. Barron McCann was uniquely positioned to be able to support both requirements and reopen each upgraded store for trading on time, every time.
Why Barron McCann?
- Excellence in project management, execution, and reporting
- Able to provide extensive implementation and services delivery portfolio including procurement, hangaring, build/configuration and deployment, as well as on-going support (break-fix maintenance) for POS and IT equipment across the board
- Solid 35-year reputation as a leading supplier to UK and European retailers
- Highly knowledgeable, dedicated, and efficient Project & Support team
- A quality-driven, scalable delivery model
- Leveraging in house expert knowledge and dedicated resources such as project management, logistics, warehousing, and build
