Restaurant chain Yo! Sushi is to begin implementation of an IP telephony system to reduce its operational costs.

The company will replace a legacy set-up with the new technology across 35 branches, and will extend the system to a further 15 outlets within the next 12 months.

"The ongoing costs of line rental and telephony maintenance were becoming a significant overhead to the business and, as we had plans to double the number of outlets within two years, this was an appropriate time to review our overall telecoms strategy," said Yo! Sushi IT manager Billy Walters.

Yo! Sushi hopes that the new platform will allow it to integrate incoming calls with its customer database and maps software, which is in turn expected to generate savings as calls are routed to the company's own call centre in London.

A conferencing feature in the system aims to improve internal communication and cut costs, as regional managers will be able to hold remote meetings with restaurant supervisors, reducing the need for travel or to subscribe to a third-party service.

"We expect the system to pay for itself within two years, and believe that we have only scratched the surface of what we think the telephony system can do for us in the future," said Walters.

The system was supplied by Swyx.