The National Gallery

The National Gallery's communication infrastructure, based on an outdated phone system, was increasingly becoming a bottleneck for the institution's operations. Not only was the legacy system expensive to maintain, but its inflexibility also hindered the adoption of the Gallery's evolving hybrid work model, which required seamless integration of voice, video, and instant messaging.

Routine IT maintenance tasks such as system upgrades were becoming overly complicated, as these required manual intervention on each handset across the entire Gallery.

Moreover, the operational costs of the legacy system were remarkably high due to the dedicated leased lines exclusively provisioned for voice calls, and the over provision of voice lines. The initial allocation of SIP/voice channels was designed prior to video communication and Instant messaging was a lot less prevalent.

Formation Tech were engaged to steer this setup towards a modern, unified communication landscape. The objective was to integrate Microsoft Teams Voice into the Gallery's existing collaboration strategy, thereby creating an all-encompassing platform for communication and collaboration.

Prior to this Teams Voice migration, a series of comprehensive audits and network readiness assessments were performed to ensure a seamless transition of voice services onto the Gallery's data network.

A key issue for The Gallery was to also find a solution to retain many legacy devices installed around the premises to support security and emergency lift lines. This was addressed by deploying a physical Teams gateway to site, ensuring these legacy devices could be retained and monitored, also saving the need to re-cable large parts of The Gallery.

The transformation brought about by Formation Tech was all-encompassing. National Gallery users can now access voice services anywhere, extending the full collaboration experience of Microsoft Teams Voice. The burden of maintaining an obsolete phone system no longer falls on the IT department, with users being offered the option of using either headsets or physical handsets as per their preference. Enhanced and agile reporting functionality now available to all teams improving customer service and resource planning.

Formation Tech now provide a managed service that acts as an extension of the Gallery's internal team. With zero capital costs for the project and significant operational expenditure savings, The National Gallery experienced a compelling return on investment.

From a user perspective, the transition was seen as a simple change with new functionality being added into an application that they were already familiar with.

This case study illustrates Formation Tech's commitment to empowering organisations with modern, efficient communication infrastructures. By understanding the unique needs of each user, Formation Tech has enabled The National Gallery to harness the power of unified communications, thereby fostering enhanced collaboration and generating substantial cost savings.