Optima is a specialist provider of recruitment, training and consultancy services based in Leicester.

| Business Objectives

Optima is a specialist provider of recruitment, training and consultancy services based in Leicester.  Over the past 6 years they have built a team consisting of some of the most skilled recruitment advisors in the UK.  Optima help their clients build great firms that achieve optimum performance, growth and shareholder value, the IT provider Optima went with was always going to play a key role in helping deliver this.

Optima engaged Leap IT back in 2016 as they were un-happy with their current provider and were faced with having to make a sizeable investment in the IT systems and phones together with an office relocation as part of its expansion programme.

 

The key requirements were as follows:-

  • Provide internet connectivity into the new offices Optima were relocating to
  • Dismantle the current IT infrastructure from the old offices and re-locate at the new offices with no downtime
  • Supply a managed wireless network throughout the new premises with both staff and visitor internet access available 24×7
  • Provide a fully managed VoIP telephony system with 4 hunt groups, incoming receptionist and 40 handsets with individual direct dial numbers for each consultant

Our Solution

Leap IT firstly installed a 50Mb leased line for Optima’s new offices in Leicester together with all the necessary routers and firewall to secure the network moving forward.

Optima were keen to give their staff the latest tools and technology to deliver the best experience to the candidates and clients they were handling.  With this in mind Leap IT rolled out a softphone telephony solution where inbound and outbound calls are all managed directly on the users PCs and Laptops.  Crystal clear headsets allow Optima’s staff to have both hands free for typing, smooth transferring of calls with the click of a mouse, on demand call recording and even direct links into their CRM allowing click to dial and customer records to pop up automatically when they are on the phone.  Each consultant was given their own direct dial line so candidates can get straight through to them side stepping the receptionist.

The existing servers and PCs were all moved to the new offices outside of business hours and setup throughout the night.  This included dismantling the current rack servers and fitting them into a purpose-built server room at the new offices.

Lastly Leap IT installed our cloud managed Unifi Wireless Access Points to give complete wireless coverage around the offices.  Two wireless networks were setup to provide internal staff with internet access and access to the data and tools they need and a further guest network for visitors to Optima.  At the same time security measures were put in place to limit the guest wifi network speed and also ensure visitors can only access the internet and none of Optima’s servers.

The Outcome

The move into larger offices was seamless with the server being shut down out of hours and installed at the new offices throughout the night.  PCs were installed on users desks as per a floor plan provided by Optima.

Our 3CX VoIP phone system was setup to utilise the leased line previously installed which not only gave staff the latest VoIP technology on their desktop but also gives Optima free telephone calls.   Our built-in toll fraud software also learns their dialling habits over time and detects any suspicious activity, alerting us to potential fraud or phone scams.  It will even take remedial action in the event of something out of the ordinary happening by shutting down the phone lines, so you never need to worry about your phone bills running out of control.

The entire solution for phones, IT and Cloud were then wrapped up in our fully managed support contract giving them a single point of contact for any issues moving forward.

**UPDATE OCT 2017** We are now looking at introducing airport style monitoring screens which link directly into Optima’s CRM software to display staff performance and real-time KPI monitoring throughout the day.