Childcare group sees benefits of IP

The National Childminding Association (NCMA) is deploying IP technology to improve communications with the public and its dispersed workforce.

Some 100 staff at the NCMA, which promotes home-based childcare, are using the system at its Bromley headquarters, but it will be rolled out to all of the NCMA’s 500-strong workforce in 30 UK regional offices.

The Mitel 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP) will help create a single point of contact for the public, centralise reception and provide a call menu to ensure enquiries are dealt with quickly. New functionality will also include remote access to voicemail for staff.

‘We had an ageing analogue system that had issues with remote support. The system was not efficient and we decided to take a long-term view by adopting IP telephony,’ said NCMA IT manager Paul Budgeon.

‘We rejected the idea of an IP bolt-on to our telephone system. Now we have a couple of rack-mounted units in our headquarters instead of a wall covered in telephony equipment.’

When the NCMA merged its two offices into a single site, the IT team chose a converged IP infrastructure to cut networking and improve internal communication, while reducing administration time.

Telecommunications provider Telinet implemented the system, and the NCMA is already reaping the benefits of IP telephony.

‘Our IT team is managing all internal reconfiguration of the phones through a Mitel web interface,’ said Budgeon. ‘Call management is better, we can set up and monitor call queues and we have more advanced voicemail as employees can keep in touch with messages on the move.’

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